The Emory University baseball team outlasted Huntingdon College, 10-3, in a 14-inning marathon contest Sunday night in the finale of the Firehouse Classic in Montgomery, Alabama.
Juniors Blake Dincman and Brok Liu combined for six of the team's 12 hits and drove in three runs total. Freshman Aidan Conley and sophomore Zach Wasserlauf both drove in a pair to aid the Emory offense. Six hurlers combined to limit the Hawks to one earned run over the 14 innings with reliever Zac Schultz earning the win as he pitched 1.2 scoreless innings.
The game started out as a pitcher's duel between senior Derek Livingston and Huntingdon's JB Landrum as both teams were held scoreless through four innings. The Eagles struck first when Wasserlauf delivered a two-out, two-run single up the middle to plate junior Adrien Armstrong and freshman Trevor McAndrews in the fifth inning.
Livingston was outstanding in his second career start, working 5.2 scoreless innings before he was forced to leave due to an injury in the middle of an at-bat in the sixth. He allowed just two hits and struck out five. Sophomore Adam Geller replaced him on the mound and was equally impressive, striking out four in 2.1 innings and only allowed one unearned run.
Emory looked like it was going to win the game in nine innings, leading 3-1 with one out in the bottom of the ninth. However, momentum swung when Noah Phillips was called out after it was determined he leaned into the strike zone to get hit by a pitch. The call led to the ejection of Huntingdon's head coach DJ Conville which in turn sparked a Hawks' rally as they proceeded to tie the game with back-to-back doubles following the ejection.
In extras, neither team mustered much of a threat in innings 10 through 13. The trio of juniors Ryan Kelly, Bennett Speicher and Schultz held Huntingdon scoreless in the extra innings, allowing the Emory offense to come alive in the 14th for the win.
In the 14th, the Eagles sent 11 batters to the plate to score seven runs to put the game out of reach. Conley started the inning with a double and quickly advanced to third as freshman Mitchell Smallwood reached via a walk and Wasserlauf was hit by a pitch. With freshman Jake Lawson at the plate, Conley scored the go-ahead run on a wild pitch. Two batters later, graduate student Nick Wilson worked a bases loaded walk to make it 5-3. With two outs, Dincman, Liu and Conley had consecutive run-scoring singles to break the game open.
Having won two straight to close out the weekend in Alabama, the Eagles will return to Atlanta next weekend for a three-game series against Rose-Hulman. The series gets underway on Saturday with a doubleheader starting at 11:00 AM at Chappell Park.