Hugo Casilla made sure his Chattanooga State baseball team didn't need drama similar to the first game Saturday to complete a home doubleheader sweep of nearby TCCAA rival Cleveland State.
The Venezuelan from St. Brendan High School in Miami pitched a four-hitter with six strikeouts in a 7-0 victory that followed a 7-6 win for the Tigers. They took a 3-0 lead in that one but then fell behind 6-3 before improving to 8-2, 4-0 against league competition.
Casilla is 3-0 with one no-decision in his first college season.
"He didn't have his best stuff. He's been a little more electric, to be honest," Chattanooga State coach Greg Dennis said, "but he grinded it out."
Dennis gave that as a description of his team in general. The Tigers, like Cleveland State's Cougars, are freshman-dominated and have been plowing more than wowing in the early season.
"We're a grinder-type team, but we've been that way a lot of times in my 13 years here," Dennis said. "We've got some lumps ahead of us and we'll take ours, but we're learning and we're getting better, and our guys do fight. That can cure a lot of bad things.
"I'm proud of the way they stayed with it, but it didn't surprise me."
Four of the Tigers who played Saturday are from St. Brendan, including first-game starting pitcher Andy Rivera, and third baseman Brandon Melendez also is from Miami. He was 2-for-2 with a double and scored twice in the second game, when catcher Danny Sirven from St. Brendan was 1-for-2 with an RBI and two runs and Matt Wood hit a two-run single in the three-run sixth. Taylor Maxey, Connor Morro and Nate Schmal also had RBIs.
Sean McDermott was 2-for-3 for the Cougars (5-6).
Devin Gardner was 2-for-4 with a two-run triple and Lee Gibson also had two RBIs in game one for Cleveland State, while sophomore Schmal was 3-for-3 and scored twice, Morro was 2-for-4 with two RBIs and Maxey was 2-for-4 with the winning RBI.
With the Tigers trailing 6-5 even after their two-run fifth, Schmal led off the bottom of the seventh with a double that appeared catchable in left field. Cleanup man Nico Lares was hit by a Jake Rogers pitch, Melendez loaded the bases with a drag bunt and Sirven got the tying run home when his bouncer to third was booted. Two strikeouts followed before Maxey ripped officially a game-ending one-run single that could've been a two- or three-run double.
Cleveland State officially made only two errors but missed some chances for threat-ending positive plays.
"We gave them five unearned runs," coach Mike Policastro said. "There were errors and there were plays that weren't made - DPs that weren't made, bunts that weren't made. Those always come back to beat you."
- Lee 17-4, Delta State 13-9: At Cleveland, Miss., Luke Toms and Ben Holland homered and went 5-for-6 and 3-for-6 respectively, with three and four RBIs, as Lee won the first game in the Gulf South Conference doubleheader, and Nathan Wierzgac, Tyler Payne, Ty Broady and Chris Adams each had two hits and two RBIs. Wierzgac, Holland and Toms each scored three runs and Geremy Walton was 3-for-6 and matched Broady with two runs.
The teams totaled 38 hits in game one. Lee (6-6, 1-4) had only six hits in the rematch, but Holland was 3-for-4 with a homer and a double and Wierzgac was 2-for-3 with a double, an RBI and a run.
- LaGrange 7-4, Covenant 0-5: On Lookout Mountain, Covenant rebounded from a shutout loss to win Saturday's second game in 10 innings and the USA South weekend series. Trenton Nobles' second walk-off hit of the year capped a two-run 10th for the Scots (7-5, 2-1), and Caleb Bloye homered and singled.
Ryan Broaderick pitched a three-hitter with six strikeouts in the win for LaGrange (9-5, 1-2).
- Berry 17-3, Sewanee 10-4: At Sewanee, the Tigers' second-game win made them 1-12 for the season and dropped Berry to 11-1, each at 1-1 in the Southern Athletic Association. The hosts scored all four of their runs in the third inning, getting consecutive RBIs from Bryce Benedict, Tyler Minkkinen and Jackson Cooper, and J.T. Hintzen pitched a five-hitter with eight strikeouts and only one earned run.
Cooper was 4-for-6 and Minkkinen, Ryan Poole and Josh Roberts each had three hits and matched his two runs in the first game for Sewanee, which tied the game with a four-run sixth inning and also had a four-run ninth, but the Vikings scored four in the seventh and made it a runaway with nine in the ninth. Greg Keel was 4-for-5 with four RBIs and three runs scored for Berry, while Alfred Francis and Dusty Tyson each had three hits and two RBIs and Ben Jernigan hit a two-run homer. Benedict and Derek Hullings had two RBIs apiece for Sewanee.