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Host sites announced: good news for Peach State

          Baseball America’s early-Sunday projections had Georgia and Georgia Tech hosting and getting national seeds, but it also figured Georgia Southern would win the Sun Belt (and head to Athens).
          Games must be played, so projections are mostly irrelevant.
          GSU went from up 7-4 to a 9-7 loss to Coastal Carolina in a winner-moves-on Sun Belt finale.
          It had Wofford as fourth seed in Atlanta as the Southern Conference champ, and Mercer won it.
          The magazine’s projected host cities: Nashville, Chapel Hill, Los Angeles, Raleigh, Athens, Corvallis, Starkville, Baton Rouge, Fayetteville, Morgantown, Atlanta, Greenville (N.C.), Louisville, Stillwater, Lubbock, and Stanford.
         The only differences: Mississippi got a host reward in place of Raleigh.
          So there will be regional baseball in Georgia, at Georgia Tech and Georgia, and odds are Mercer will be at one of those two.
          The selection show is at noon Monday.

Sunday
North Carolina 10, Georgia Tech 2; Mercer 12, Wofford 8; 4:40 p.m.: Mercer 9, Wofford 5; Coastal Carolina 9, Georgia Southern 7

SUNDAY

Mercer 9, Wofford 5 (championship)
          It would all come down to pitching, and how much gas was in the tank.
          Mercer, and Tanner Hall, had more.
          The Houston County alum threw a season-high 114 pitches just two days earlier came in and heaved another 25 pitches in three innings to close the door as fourth-seeded Mercer took its second Southern Conference Tournament title.
          Hall arrived in the seventh and got out of a leadoff runner situation, retiring the side in order. He rolled through the eighth in order, and took a four-run lead – thanks to three in the bottom of the eighth – into the ninth.
          It got a little hairy with two one-out singles before the second out, putting runners on the corners. A pair of liners later, Mercer was the champ.
          It was 6-5 Mercer when Wofford’s pitching began to hit a wall after Hall needed 10 pitches to get out of the eighth. Mercer loaded the bases, aided by a throwing error by pitcher Hayes Heinecke.

          Jordan Ammons’ 0-1 single to left brought in two runs for an 8-5 lead, and RJ Yeager’s single added another run.
          Both teams went through five pitchers.
          Taylor Lobus got the win, improving to 2-0, and Hall got his first save of the year in his second relief appearance. He struck out two with no walks and two hits on 42 pitches in three innings.
          The last fourth seed to win the tournament was Georgia Southern in 2014, the Eagles’ final year in the league.
          Mercer (35-27) was a victim of the last time a team won two straight to take the title, the Bears falling 4-2 and 3-2 in 2016 as the top seed, losing to No. 2 Western Carolina.
          Wofford (36-25) got one in the top of the first by getting the first three batters on and scoring on a double play.
          The Bears scored three in the second on a Yeager groundout, a Kyle Dockus double, and Trevor Austin’s single, plus a balk in the middle.

          Lobus took over for Mercer starter Holton McGaha in the top of the second.
          The Bears added one in the third – aided by an error - and two in the fourth, on an Austin groundout and Kel Johnson double.
          Andrew Kane (0-1, 1.82 ERA in 29.2 innings) succeeded Lobus in the fifth with the bases loaded and nobody out. A run came in on a double-play grounder, and Kane got a strikeout to end the inning.
          But he left after giving up two singles to open the sixth, and on came Nick Spear for the fifth time in three days and second time on Sunday.
          In eight tournament innings before the finale, he had given up eight hits, striking out nine with no walks.
          A sac bunt that Mercer didn’t defend properly moved a runner to third to set up a run-scoring sac fly, and Spear gave up his first walk an out later.
          It hurt. A single brought in two runs and put runners on second and third, the Terriers now within 6-5. A popup ended the inning.
          Hall, who threw a season-high 114 pitches in Friday’s win over UNCG, came on in the seventh.
          Mercer got the bases loaded in the bottom of the seventh, two outs coming after a leadoff single, but a fly to center ended the inning. Hall needed 10 pitches in the eighth.
          The Bears added an unneeded cushion with three in the eighth.
          Austin, Johnson, Ammons, and Dockus had two hits each, with Austin, Ammons, and Yeager driving in two runs each.

Mercer 12, Wofford 8 (Game 1)

          The Bears came to play again in an elimination game – for them – by answering an early Wofford answer with four in the third to gain some control and force a winner-take-all finale, scheduled to start at 4:40 p.m.
          Mercer was on the verge of a mercy-rule game – which would have been a benefit for both teams as far as pitching goes – after going up 12-3 after the top of the seventh only for the Terriers to assure a nine-inning game with four in the seventh.
          The Bears put up the four in the third on a walk, Collin Price single, throwing error, hit batter, two-run Jordan Ammons double and a Kyle Dockus single, all with no outs. Then the Bears went down in 10 pitches.
          They loaded the bases with no outs in the sixth, getting a run after a thrwing error and on a walk, but again then went down 1-2-3, this time on six pitches.
          Sawyer Gipson-Long finally hit trouble, after passing the 100-pitch mark, in the bottom of the seventh when Wofford answered Mercer’s two with four to pull within 12-7. The first four batters reached before Gipson-Long settled down to get out of the inning.
          He threw a season-high 120 pitches in seven innings – the third time this season and second time this month he’s thrown seven - with eight strikeouts and no walks, the Terriers battling for 11 hits and getting two unearned runs along the way.
          On came Scott Smith in the eighth with a five-run lead, Mercer stranding two in the top half.
          Wofford got one in the eighth, and Smith gave way to Nick Spear, who escaped the inning with no further damage, and the Bears followed a one-out single in the top of the ninth with a double play.
          Spear was big with three innings in eliminating Samford on Saturday, after throwing 1.1 innings earlier Saturday against ETSU.
The senior from St. Pius still had juice, and needed just eight pitches to finish off the Terriers.  Gipson-Long improved to 8-3.
          Dockus, Trevor Austin, and Kel Johnson each had three hits for the Bears, Alex Crotty and Sammons driving in two runs each as Mercer shuffled the lineup pretty substantially, putting leadoff Dockus at the bottom and Bill Knight from the bottom to the top.

North Carolina 10, Georgia Tech 2

          A pitching duel through five innings became a big Georgia Tech hole when the Tar Heels put up four in the sixth en route to rolling to the ACC championship.
          Tech scored one in the third, and proceeded to be stymied offensively after that.
          After scoring, they were retired in order in the fourth, fifth, seventh, and eighth, stranding a leadoff runner in the sixth. A botched two-out fly ball in the ninth was ruled a double, and the Jackets then scored.
          North Carolina belted the last of its four homers in a four-run ninth.
          Tech won the series in early April, winning two but was outscored 26-24 in the three games.
          The Yellow Jackets had pretty much been a lock for a home regional, but now the question is whether such a shaky performance, especially on offense, knocked them from getting a top-8 national seed. That would assure Tech a home super regional.
          The NCAA will announce regional hosts Sunday night, and the seeds and regional fields at noon Monday.

Mercer vs. Wofford

Coastal Carolina 9, Georgia Southern 7

          The Eagles were cruising early, leading 6-0  after two. It was Coastal’s game after that, the tourney hosts getting back into it with three in the fourth, and taking the lead with four in the sixth for the tourney title.
          Three in that sixth came on a homer after a walk and hit batter, the fourth on a two-out double.
          The Eagles scored one in the fourth, to lead 7-3, and managed five runners after that. They stranded a one-out walk in the ninth after doin down in order in the eighth.
          The tournament was, after two play-in games, double elimination until the championship game. Coastal Carolina had lost to Texas-Arlington on Wednesday, while the Eagles were unbeaten until the finale.
          GSU ended its season at 35-24, while Coastal advances with a 35-24-1 mark.

SATURDAY

Mercer 4, Samford 3

          Down two runs in an elimination game, Samford opened the bottom of the ninth with two singles, putting runners on the corners. An out and a run later, it was a one-run game and the tie run on second. With no outs.
          Normal Samford-Mercer baseball in the postseason.
          A shot up the middle turned into a 4-3 out with the runner moving to third.
          But reliever Nick Spear got an innocent groundout to second from Kaden Dreier to end it and lift Mercer into the championship of the Southern Conference Tournament in Greenville, S.C.
          The Bears will play Wofford at noon Sunday in the championship, Mercer needing two wins to get the automatic bid. Wofford has beaten VMI 12-7, WTSU 2-1, and Samford 5-2 in the tournament.
          Mercer is in the final for the fourth time in five years, but the Bears have won it only once, beating Samford 5-0 in the 2015 championship.
          The Bears lost two to Western Carolina a year later, went 1-2 in 2017, and lost 14-4 to Samford in seven innings last year.
          Mercer had taken two of three from Samford in Macon earlier this month: 7-2, 1-0, and 2-7. The Bulldogs popped the Bears 11-0 on Thursday in the tournament.
          “They’ve sorta owned us here,” Mercer head coach Craig Gibson said in an on-field TV interview. “To get beat 11-0 the first time against ‘em this week, and come back and win, and have a chance and eliminate the No. 1 seed, I think it says a lot about our program.”
          The Bears lost two of three at Wofford in late March: 1-4, 2-11, and 4-1. The Terriers are the least-successful tournament team, going only 13-16 in 10 appearances entering this year. Their lone championship came in 2007.
          Mercer led 4-0 after a three-run fifth – two coming in on Angelo DiSpigna’s double - but Samford scored one in the seventh and eighth, the Bears stranding two in the sixth and one in the eighth, getting retired in order in the seventh and ninth.
          Jackson Kelley was huge, going six – with 68 pitches - and giving up a run with six strikeouts and no walks to improve to 2-1. Spear went three innings for his ninth save.
          Kelley’s last decision was March 26, a 7-3 loss at Georgia Southern. The freshman from Walker had 20.2 innings in 17 appearances – only one start – entering Saturday.
          He hadn’t gone more than two innings all year, and did that only twice, last back on March 6 in a 13-3 loss to Georgia Southern. His highest pitch count was 45 in that game.
          “We picked the right starter,” Gibson said with a grin. “How ‘bout that? He was great. He’s really got a lot of composure and poise.
          “You just never know tournament time who’s going to step up.”
          DiSpigna went 3-for-4 with two RBI, Bill Knight and Trevor Austin adding two hits each. Batters 2-3-4 in the lineup – RJ Yeager, Kel Johnson, and Collin Price – were held to a 0-for-14 game with one run.   

Georgia Tech 9, N.C. State 2
          Tech took an early lead, retook it with three in the fifth and put it away with five in the eighth to advance to the ACC final.
          Michael Guldberg drove in three runs and Nick Wilhite led the 11-hit attack with three hits, Luke Waddell and Tristin English adding two hits each for the Jackets, who needed only two pitchers. Jonathan Hughes went five innings in relief, giving way to Jake Lee for the final out.
          The Jackets improved to 41-16 and are all but a lock to host a regional next week.

Mercer 11, ETSU 7
          Six Mercer pitchers stranded 11 ETSU runners and the Bears eased ahead in the second half of the game to knock the Bucs from the SoCon Tournament and get a shot at top seed Samford in an elimination game Saturday night.
          Taylor Lobus, Mercer’s second pitcher, got the win and J Kelley the save as Mercer improved to 32-27.
          Trevor Austin went 4 for 4 from the bottom of the lineup, while Collin Price had three hits, and Angelo DiSpigna and Alex Crotty two hits each. Crotty and Austin drove in three runs each and Price
two.
          Mercer led 5-4 after four and was up 9-5 after eight.
          The Bears will try to avenge an 11-0 loss to the Bulldogs on Thursday, tying their worst loss of the season (12-1 to FSU).

Mississippi 5, Georgia 3
          A cut cuticle ended the day early for Georgia starting pitcher Emerson Hancock, and the Rebels got to Tony Locey a little bit while the Georgia offense struggled in an SEC semifinal.
          The single-elimination round less ends Georgia’s visit to the tournament, and the Bulldogs will prepare for the NCAA Tournament, in which they’ll get a regional and, with a win, likely a super regional.

Georgia Southern 1, Troy 0
          The Eagles were outhit by two, but the lone run was unearned in the fourth and Georgia Southern pitching kept the Trojans from converting walks and hits into runs.
          Georgia Southern moved into the Sun Belt championship game on Sunday, the Eagles’ third such visit in the past four years. The Eagles have 10 wins in 22 overall conference tournament championships.

TOURNAMENTS
Southern Conference
Greenville, S.C.
Games streaming at www.soconsports.com
Tuesday
8 Western Carolina 7, The Citadel 3
Wednesday
1 Samford 5, WCU 4, 10 inn.
4 Mercer 11, 5 Furman 2
6 ETSU 4, 3 UNCG 2
2 Wofford 12, 7 VMI 7
Thursday
Furman 9, WCU 7
UNCG 4, VMI 2
Samford 11, Mercer 0
Wofford 2, ETSU 1
Friday
Mercer 9, UNGC 5
ETSU 7, Furman 5
Saturday
Wofford 5, Samford 2
Mercer 11, ETSU 7
Mercer 4, Samford 3
Sunday
Mercer 12, Wofford 8; Mercer 9, Wofford 5, championship

 
SEC
Hoover, Ala.
Games on SECN
Tuesday
6 Texas A&M 8, 11 Florida 7
7 Mississippi 2, 10 Missouri 1
8 Auburn 5, 9 Tennessee 3
5 LSU 8, 12 South Carolina 6
Wednesday
3 Georgia 2, A&M 0
2 Arkansas 5, 7 Mississippi 3
1 Vanderbilt 11, 8 Auburn 1
4 Mississippi State 6, LSU 5, 17 inn.
Thursday
Mississippi 1, A&M 0
LSU 4, Auburn 3
Georgia 3, Arkansas 1
Vanderbilt 1, Mississippi State 0
Friday
Mississippi 3, Arkansas 2
LSU 12, Mississippi State 2 
Saturday
Mississippi 5, Georgia 3
Vanderbilt 13, LSU 4
Sunday
Vandy 11, Ole Miss 10

ACC
Durham, N.C.
Games on Regional Sports Networks/ACCN Extra
Tuesday
12 Boston College 7, 8 Clemson 5, 11 inn.
10 Wake Forest 7, 6 Florida State 4
7 Duke 10, 11 Notre Dame 6
Wednesday
12 Boston College 5, 1 Louisville 1
Georgia Tech 12, No. 11 Notre Dame 6
5 North Carolina 3, Virginia 2
Thursday
Clemson 7, 1 Louisville 1
4 Miami 9, 9 Virginia 3
3 N.C. State 6, 10 Wake Forest 5
Friday
Georgia Tech 5, Duke 4
North Carolina 7, Miami 5
6 Florida State 11, 3 N.C. State 0
Saturday
North Carolina 13, Boston College 5
Georgia Tech 9, NC State 2

Sunday
Championship, North Carolina 10, Georgia Tech 2

 
Sun Belt
Conway, S.C.
Games on ESPN+
Tuesday
10 Louisiana-Monroe 12, 7 USA 7
8 Louisiana-Lafayette 6, 9 App State 2
Wednesday
3 Little Rock 6, Troy 5
2 Georgia Southern 6, 8 Louisiana 5, 13 inn.
4 Texas Arlington 9, 5 Coastal Carolina 8, 10 inn.
ULM 8, Texas State 0
Thursday
Troy 10, ULL 7
Coastal Carolina 13, Texas State 4
Georgia Southern 10, Little Rock 3
ULM 18, UTA 5

Friday
Troy 5, Little Rock 4
Coastal Carolina 14, UTA 13, 10 inn.
Saturday
Georgia Southern 1, Troy 0
Coastal Carolina 26, ULM 10
7:30 p.m.: Coastal Carolina vs. ULM
Sunday
Championship, Coastal Carolina 9, Georgia Southern 7

 
Atlantic Sun
DeLand, Fla.
Click on link for updates

FRIDAY

Mercer 9, UNCG 5

          The Bears led 5-0 after three 7-2 after five, and UNCG’s three-run seventh added a little suspense but reliever Nick Spear shut the door in the final two innings for the save for starter and Houston County grad Tanner Hall.
          Hall went seven innings, striking out four with a walk.
          Bill Knight, Kel Johnson and Collin Price had two hits each for the Bears.

Georgia Tech 5, Duke 4
          Tristin English delivered a walk-off double to give the Yellow Jackets the win and push them to the semifinals of the ACC Tournament.
          English had belted a two-run homer, and hit the game-winner off a pitcher with a .162 opponents’ average.

THURSDAY

Samford 11, Mercer 0

          The top seed took control with five runs in the third and Mercer’s normally potent offense could get nothing going.
          The Bears were held to five hits and gave up 16.
          Mercer’s bullpen held Samford to one run in five innings after the deficit grew to 7-0, but Samford put it away with three in the ninth. Kel Johnson had two hits for the Bears.

Georgia 3, Arkansas 1
          After going so long with no wins in the SEC Tournament, Georgia has won two straight, getting past Arkansas.
          Now, the Bulldogs will make their first semifinal trip since 2011.
          Junior Aaron Schunk came up with a rally-starting double in the eighth and then came up with his 12th save.

 Georgia Southern 10, Little Rock 3
          The Eagles survived leaving 15 runners on, aided by five UALR errors, and took control with five runs in two middle innings.
          Joe Nahas went 5.1 innings for the win and Cole Whitney got his six save.

WEDNESDAY
Mercer 11, Furman 2
          The third inning very much separated teams seeded together, Mercer putting up five en route to a big win over a team that won the series last weekend.
          Mercer plays top seed Samford at 4 p.m. Thursday.
          Freshman Bill Knight drove in five runs, four on a grand slam in the big inning.
          Sawyer Gipson-Long and Taylor Lobus handled the pitching for Mercer (30-26).

Georgia 2, Texas A&M 0
          Georgia and Texas A&M were deep into a major pitching battle that had extra innings written all over it.
          Until …
          Cam Shepherd drilled a two-out, two-run walk-off homer to lead Georgia past A&M, its first in the SEC tournament since 2011.
          A&M left fielder Cam Blake appeared at first to have made the catch, his glove getting above the fence, and it wasn’t until a second or two after he landed that it was clearly a home run.
          Georgia pitching struck out six with three walks, allowing two hits. A&M fanned six with a walk and three hits.

Georgia Tech 12, Notre Dame 6
          Notre Dame kicked it around five times and Georgia Tech took advantage, pulling away after the Irish got close with four in the seventh.
          Tech outhit Notre Dame 13-11 and had only one error. The Jackets ran four pitchers out and they teamed for nine strikeouts and no walk.
          Four of Tech’s runs were unearned.
          Collin Hall and Michael Guldberg each had three hits, Austin Wilhite two for Tech.
          Amos Willingham got the win and Keyton Gibson the save.
         
Georgia Southern 6, Louisiana-Lafayette 5, 13 inn.
          A double, single, wild pitch, sac bunt, and throwing error led to the walk-off win for Georgia Southern.