CLEBURNE, Texas (May 12, 2016) – No.9 Lubbock Christian University endured 23 innings of baseball Friday at the Heartland Conference Tournament. The Chaparrals opened the day held to one hit, but defeated St. Mary's University 2-0 for their first ever Heartland Conference Tournament win in program history. They followed with a 14-inning marathon with Arkansas Fort Smith, which they lost 4-3 and were eliminated from the tournament at The Depot at Cleburne Station.
 
The opening game featured a pitchers duel between StMU's Holden Grounds and LCU's Daniel Crooks. Grounds went nine innings and allowed one hit, but the Virginia transfer was almost pulled before the first out was recorded in the top of the first inning. LCU's first three batters walked, as Grounds' first 10 pitches resulted in balls. A bases loaded wild pitch led the LCU's first run and a 1-0 first inning lead.
 
Grounds had a no-hitter through the first four innings, not allowing a hit to the first 18 batters he faced. Josh Narvaiz had LCU's lone hit in the fifth inning before Grounds kept LCU without a hit for the final 16 batters he faced. Grounds, who suffered the season-ending loss (6-6) for the Rattlers, ended up walking seven batters and tossing four wild pitches. LCU took advantage of a pair of eighth inning walks and a pair of sacrifices. Tony Reyes' sac-fly to left field allowed Narvaiz to tag up and score for a 2-0 advantage.
 
Meanwhile, Crooks was holding the Rattlers to four hits in his start. Crooks had first-pitch strike on 20 of the first 24 batters he faced. He had a string of 14 batters faced without allowing a hit. He went eight innings and combined with Christian Marquez for the Chaps eight shutout of the season. The Chaps benefited with three double plays turned, including a 3-6-3 double play to end the game and provide Marquez his team co-leading sixth save of the season.
 
The win over StMU marked a perfect 7-0 series record for LCU over the Rattlers this season. It also marked LCU's first win at the Heartland Conference Tournament in program history.
 
LCU advanced to Friday night's elimination contest against UAFS, who fell into the elimination bracket after a Friday afternoon to loss to St. Edward's. UAFS and LCU each had sluggish offensive starts, with each team being held to one hit through four innings.  Caleb Koedyker had LCU's first hit (in the second inning) to end a sequence of 21 consecutive batters unable to produce a hit (carrying over from the StMU contest). The game remained scoreless until LCU scored all three of their runs in the top of the six inning. Entering the inning with one hit against lefty Evan Dodd, the Chaps received singles from Narvaiz, Brandon Rix (RBI), Tony Reyes and Ryan Rogers (RBI) to set-up a sacrifice fly RBI by Chase Simmons to complete the three-run inning.
 
During the offensive display, UAFS made a pitching change bringing out closer Nick Yoning. He kept the Chaps off the scoreboard and allowed his team to bounce back from the 3-0 deficit. A trio of UAFS hits in the bottom of the sixth inning led to their first run and led to the end of the pitching start by LCU's Russell Reber, who went 5.1 inning and allowed one run off five hits.
 
The game featured a wild twist in the eighth inning after Kasey Cooper cut the LCU lead to 3-2 with a leadoff home run. The Lions followed the homer with a hit and a pair of LCU errors led to a bases loaded situation with no outs. A bases loaded walk by reliever Nick Hooper tied the game at 3-3, but LCU was able to prevent another run from scoring in the inning. Brent Bezio entered out of the bullpen and was able to get a force out fielder's choice out at home plate, a strikeout and a pop-up in the infield to escape the jam.
 
The next 5.1 innings was the Bezio and Yoning show. Yoning, whose prior longest outing had been four innings, went 8.2 innings in relief and had nine strikeouts. He retired the Chaps in order in four of the innings and allowed six hits. LCU was 0-for-7 getting the leadoff batter aboard with Yoning on the hill. Bezio went 6.1 innings in relief and had seven strikeouts, while allowing five hits.
 
Bezio did not allowed a leadoff batter aboard until the bottom of the 14^th inning, hitting Cooper.  A costly mistake, as UAFS manufactured him into scoring position and he eventually made his way to third base. It set up an infield chopper by Dylan Hurt and LCU was unable to make a play to get the out at home and UAFS completed the walk-off win.
 
It was the second consecutive walk-off win by UAFS over LCU this season. LCU has been the designated visiting team in all four meetings against UAFS on the season (LCU is 1-3 against UAFS this season).
 
Yoning improved to 3-1 with the win, while Bezio fell to 4-4 (0-2 against UAFS). The pitchers of record were the exact same from the prior walk-off meeting. Anthony Seminaris led UAFS at the plate with a 3-for-6 performance. Ryan Rogers (2-for-4) was LCU's only multi-hit performer.
 
UAFS moved to Saturday's championship game round with St. Edward's, while LCU ends the tournament with a 1-2 tournament record. The Chaps (37-14) will now await an at-large bid for one of six NCAA Division II South Central Region Tournament berths. They will be revealed during the NCAA Selection Show Sunday night at 9 p.m. (Central).
 
INSIDE THE NUMBERS
0 | Brandon Urquizo led LCU last season at the conference tournament with three hits, but this season was held without a hit in 12 at-bats.
.182 | LCU hit .182 at the conference tournament, as their offense was held to 20 hits in three combined games.
.417 | Jaime Bustamante led LCU at the tournament with a .417 (5-for-12) performance at the plate.
1 | Jaime Bustamante's double Thursday against St. Edward's was LCU's only extra base hit of the tournament.
3-2 | LCU's extra inning loss Friday places LCU with a 3-2 record this season in extra-inning contests.
8-1 | LCU's 2-0 win over St. Mary's places LCU with an 8-1 record in games resulting in shutouts.
13 | LCU and UAFS each combined for 13 strikeouts in LCU's 14-inning marathon Friday.
14 | The 14 innings in LCU's contest against UAFS marked the longest LCU game since falling 7-6 in 15 innings at West Texas A&M on Apr. 12, 2016. Russell Reber was the starting pitcher in each of the games.