Come from Behind Thriller for Eagles Baseball

David Finney

Waleska, GA - Eagles Baseball were just getting back from a Tuesday road game when it was time to suit up for another game with Truett McConnell. This time the game was at home where the Eagles had just finished a tremendous series with Bluefield a few days before.  Reinhardt won all three in the series. The final game in the Bluefield series was a walk-off hit that brought the Eagles from behind to win. Tonight's game at Ken White has had a very similar ending as the Eagles needed to come from behind to pull out the victory.

Daniel Lee would get the start for Reinhardt and he would get in three innings before being pulled. He was able to record 2 strikeouts and gave up 6 hits and 2 runs. The Eagles would end up giving a lot of their pitching staff a shot on the mound in this game. AJ Jarrell would be the next up taking over for Lee in the top of the fourth inning. Jarrell would get in two innings of work striking out 3 Bears batters. He also would give up 2 runs, but only one was earned. Jett Kern would come in next to get in the sixth, seventh, and the start of the eighth innings where he would strikeout one batter and gave up 3 hits with one being a solo home run. The home run would give Truett McConnell a 6-2 lead after the top of the eighth. Blake Rogers would come in to get the final two outs of the eighth inning and did not allow another run to score. Parker Miller would then finish out the top of the ninth for the Eagles. Miller would record one strikeout for Reinhardt and did not give up a run which set the Eagles up for the bottom of the ninth heroics. Allowing no runs for the Bears by Rogers and Miller was very important as it gave a chance for the Eagles' offense to win the game at the plate.

The Eagles would have a good third inning where they would score two runs, however, they were not able to generate much offense until the final two innings of the game. Sometimes it does take a full game to get the bats started up and get into the opposing team's relief pitching. This seemed to be the case in this game as the Eagles would score three runs in the eighth which put them at 5-6 in the game. Alex Coulter would sac fly to right field which scored Zdunich. Later, Shayne Campbell singled to center which would score Jarrett Burney and Patrick Baggett and this put the Eagles just one run short of Truett McConnell. 

In the ninth, Burney would hit a high chopper that touched the top of the pitcher's glove and dropped just about at the second baseman's feet. At this point, Coulter moved to second, Zdunich went to third, and Cedric Cullars made it home to tie the game. Nick Sanders came up to bat and reached on a fielder's choice play which got Zdunich out at home plate, but the bases were loaded, two outs and Shayne Campbell was coming to the plate.  After a couple of pitches, Campbell would drop in a hit to shallow right-center field and allowed Coulter to easily run in for the winning run of this game. The bench irrupted again for the second time in about three days for the big comeback win. The team stormed the field to celebrate with Campbell who rounded first base and then was mobbed almost at second base.

This was a huge win for the Eagles as they showed they will not give up and they are starting to make their final push for the tournament coming up in a few weeks. Shayne Campbell was the highlight of the night, however, it was a good team win where many Eagles contributed. The Eagles will have Thursday off and then be back at Ken White Field for the Friday/Saturday series with Montreat.