CHILLICOTHE, Ohio - A vintage performance by one of the best pitchers in program history and another explosive effort by an emerging hero has the Midway baseball team still alive on the final day of the River States Conference Tournament.
Blake Kincaid allowed just one run in seven innings of work while
Grant Stone hit two more home runs, including a momentum-changing, go-ahead, two-run shot in the seventh, as Midway knocked out Indiana Kokomo 5-1 in an elimination game Sunday night.
Stone, who has eight RBIs in three tournament games, turned the game on its head when he hit a line drive, two-run shot off the foul pole in left field.Â
The Eagles extended their lead to 4-1 in the eighth, when
Eli Glasscock scored on a wild pitch and
Ayden Sciandra hit a sacrifice fly, before Stone again homered down the left field line. He now has eight home runs on the season, with seven coming since April 9.
That was supported by Kincaid, the program's all-time innings and strikeout leaders who added to his total in a clutch situation Sunday.
Kincaid scattered eight hits with four strikeouts and two walks over seven innings while routinely getting out of jams, as the Cougars left two runners on base in each of the first three innings while scoring just one run.
The dramatics continued when
Jackson Lee entered in the final two innings. The Cougars left the bases loaded in a scoreless eighth, but got within 5-2 on a two-out Kasey Ross single in the ninth.
Payton Hankins then came to the plate as the tying run, only for Lee to end the game with a strikeout. It was a similar finish to Sunday's opener, where Midway escaped a bases-loaded jam
in a wild 13-12 win over Indiana Southeast.
The win was Midway's first in five games against the Cougars this season, with IUK even earning a 21-11 win in the tournament opener on Thursday.
The Eagles return for another elimination game against Shawnee State at 10 a.m. Monday. The winner will have to then beat top seed Oakland City twice Monday, as the Mighty Oaks have yet to lose in the conference tournament.
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