Caught Line Drive Stifles Cavs Baseball Rally vs. Bulldogs

May 2, 2007
Boxscore

Kingsport, TN – Matt Hall’s line drive with runners on second and third was caught and turned into a double play by Union College to defeat UVA-Wise 4-3 in the Appalachian Athletic Conference baseball opener Wednesday morning.

The Highland Cavaliers (28-14-1) will now enter the loser’s bracket of the AAC playoffs. The team will face the loser of the 7:30 p.m. Wednesday night contest between top seed Tennessee Wesleyan and 8 th-seed Bryan College. UVA-Wise will play its Thursday contest at 12:30 p.m. at King College.

Mike Lang (Fredericksburg, VA) was the lone multiple hit player for the Cavs. Lang lined a double and single. Hall (Hillsville, VA) and Brock Funk (Fries, VA) added doubles of their own. Edwin Narvaez (Morovis, PR), Brad Robbins (Big Stone Gap, VA) and Clay Christian (Wise, VA) had the other hits.

David Jones (Amelia, VA) suffered the loss on the mound to fall to 8-5. He hurled all nine innings, allowed nine hits, three earned runs and walked three to go with five strikeouts.

Union (40-12) put the first runs on the board in the top of the second. The Bulldogs pushed three runs across on three hits.

After one out, Lang doubled in the bottom of the third. Hall followed with a run-scoring two-bagger. Two batters later, Narvaez singled home Hall to make it 3-2.

The remained the same until the top of the sixth. Josh Ehringer singled with two outs, stole second and scored on a Trey Wheeler to make it 4-2.

In the home ninth, Robbins and Christian singled back-to-back with one out. Funk pinch hit for Alan Stoupa and doubled down the left field line to bring home Robbins to cut it to 4-3. Lang was intentionally walked to load the bases. Hall lined into a game-ending double play to second base as Lang was doubled off the play for the same final score.