Tigers, Cougars advance in region tourney

Second-seeded host Chattanooga State went to 2-0 in the TCCAA/NJCAA Region VII baseball tournament with a 6-4 win Friday over third-seeded Columbia State, and eighth-seeded Cleveland State extended its stay at least another day with a 6-5 elimination of fourth seed Jackson State.

David Mayo tripled in the first run for Chatt State's Tigers (29-10) and got the pitching save for winning starter Zach Thompson, and JoJo Underwood had a three-run double in their four-run third at-bat that put them up 5-2. Michael Goss was 2-for-4, including a bunt hit that followed two walks ahead of Underwood's shot over the left fielder.

Underwood moved to third on Chaz Vesser's single through the right side and scored on a double play.

Columbia State (32-17) jumped ahead in the first half-inning on a two-out two-run homer to right field by Julian Johnson, one of four first-team All-TCCAA players for the Chargers. But Mayo's triple after Vesser's walk in the second inning got the Tigers within one, and they jumped ahead an inning later with Columbia pitcher Cody Puckett having trouble with control.

"I thought we played really well. We competed well," Tigers coach Greg Dennis said. "We got behind but didn't let it take us out of what our plan was. Our guys did a pretty job of battling a guy who's a good left-handed starter.

"We capitalized on a few chances. We left a few out there. All in all, I thought it was a really good effort."

The Tigers play tonight at 7 against the winner of the 1 p.m. game between Cleveland State and Volunteer State, which lost 10-7 to Walters State in Friday's late game.

Cleveland's Cougars are 2-1 in the tournament, having fallen 6-3 to nationally eighth-ranked Walters State on Thursday, just before Jackson State endured a 24-11 loss to Volunteer State with the Pioneers padding a lead with an 11-run ninth inning.

Jackson's Generals (35-15) fell behind the Cougars (24-21) and starting pitcher Colton Morgan 5-1 through six innings but scored three runs in the seventh and tied the score the next inning, only to have Cleveland State's Janson Roberson double in Connor Coakley with a new go-ahead run in the bottom of the eighth.

Kegan Frederick pitched the last three innings, allowing one run on five hits and striking out four batters, and got the win. Morgan allowed only four hits and struck out seven in his six innings.

"They're the best hitting team in our conference. They've got a team batting average of .350 and hit a lot of homers," Cleveland State coach Mike Policastro said of the Generals. "You have to have pretty good command and keep them off balance, and Colton did a good job of that and then Kegan closed it out. We put a lot of zeros up there."

Jackson State had six scoreless innings and two with one run.

"We've lost a lot of close games. We've lost a lot of games late," Policastro said, "so our league record wasn't good (9-17). But we've played three good games here. We played Walters really well in the loss. We've swung the bat pretty well all year, and we had some key hits today."

First-team All-TCCAA third baseman Chris Caffrey brought in Wright Hackett, who was 2-for-4 with a double, with two of Cleveland State's first three runs. Leadoff man Zach Evers was 3-for-5 with two doubles, an RBI and a run scored for Jackson State, and Ryan Helgren was 1-for-1 with three walks and two runs.

Thursday against Walters, Jammer Strickland was 2-for-4 with a two-run triple and Caffrey had the other RBI for the Cougars. For the Senators (42-9), Ramon Osuna was 3-for-4, Jarrett Hood was 2-for-3 with two RBIs, Bryan Bussey homered and scored twice and Kyle Wilson had two hits and an RBI.

Dyersburg State eliminated Roane State and faces Columbia State at 10 a.m. The tournament concludes Sunday.

Contact Ron Bush at rbush@timefreepress.com or 423-757-6291.

Upcoming Events