The Southeastern Fire have returned the favor from last year's South Regional.
They beat the Crusaders 3-0 to take the Region Championship.
In doing so the Fire handed North Greenville's Baseball Club their only two losses of the Regional Tournament. In a mirror image of NGU's route to the title last season, they sent the Crusaders to the elimination bracket and beat them in the first game coming out of it. 6-3 Yesterday, 3-0 Today.
3 seemed to be an important number for NGU in the Regional, and fittingly so, as it is certainly one of the symmetry and rythym numbers of the game of baseball. (3 srtikes, 3 outs etc...) The Crusaders won their first Regional game 3-2 over Palm Beach Atlantic. They lost the next game to Southeastern by 3 runs, while scoring 3 runs themselves. They rallied from a 3-0 deficit in the Truett-McConnell game. Finally, they would up giving up the games only 3 runs in the title match to a team against whom their prior history had them at a record of 3 and (you guessed it) 3. Just an interesting tidbit on how baseball numbers sometimes fall.
As for today...
Southeastern pitched well throughout and were able to break through with the big inning in the 6th. North Greenville left the bases loaded in the bottom of the 6th with the go ahead run at the plate in the form of the tournament's hottest hitter SR 1B Tyler Callicutt. For a moment it looked as if NGU may break through, but the use of 3 different relievers shut down the Crusader rally and Phillip Kish slammed the door one final time in the 7th. The top of the sixth saw the only scoring of the game for either team as they matched each other with zeros all day long aside from that one half-inning. It would prove to be the difference in the game.
Callicutt, Reinholz and Frazier had amazing Regionals among others. NGU was led on the mound by memorable performances from Provence and Mike Benjamin. Ryan Woodring was good enough to win today as well, but the crusaders just couldn't seem to get that all important timely hit when they had runners on base. The relief work was good especially from Phillips and Giles yesterday. Much to build on moving forward for North Greenville
I am left with a real feeling that there is nothing for the Crusaders to hang their head about. They all battled hard and left it on the field. They are also still in the midst of a good run:
In the last two seasons they have been the Champion and Runner-Up of the South Regional....and who knows, if things fall right, they may get one last shot at playing tournament baseball in 2011...maybe even one last shot at Southeastern.
If you were with us on the webcast side, we apologize for the technical difficulties we experienced during today's game. The internet feed we were working with kept giving us problems. Should NGU make it to the World Series we will most likely be in an actual press box facility with high-speed internet. The nature of this should sure up both our feed and ability to stay online. Thanks for hanging with us throughout the regional, I really enjoyed bringing you the action.
I would also like to give a shout out to Palm Beach Atlantic's Athletic and Sports Information Departments. They did a great job hosting the regional and they gave us the best possible opportunity to do a good job for you with the resources that were available to us all.
Also want to thank those of you reading the blog! None of it would have been necessary without you the fans, parents, students, faculty and supporters. We kept hearing that there were many of you out there watching and listening...So thanks Cruasader Nation, it really is a pleasure bringing you the action.
Speaking of the World Series...Don't lose hope yet...
North Greenville is in the running for one of the two at-large bids for the NCCAA College World Series. The regional winners are of course automatic qualifiers, of the remaining teams 2 will be selected to complete the 10 team World Series Field. The committee will make the announcement regarding their selections on Saturday night, so hang with us for further info as the baseball season may not be over just yet.
Thanks again everyone...Hopefully I will have more to post on Saturday night and a few more games to call up north next week...
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