Flames Fall to Lancers in Tight Baseball Game

A tightly-contested affair resulted in an 8-6 win for the Longwood Lancers (14-27, 7-13) Saturday, April 28 at the Liberty Baseball Stadium. Despite the loss, the Flames overpowered Longwood, Saturday April 28, in a close 11-inning match 5-4 the following day.

On Saturday, the score was tied 4-4, and Longwood shortstop Antwaun Tucker threw the ball to first base, hoping to prolong the game. He overthrew the ball, forcing first baseman Justin Mitchell to leap in the air for the catch. A two-out throwing error was the result, and Liberty stole the win.

The win gave Liberty the upper-hand in the series, and the Flames walked away with a 2-1 victory on the series.

Center fielder D.J. Artis finished with two home runs, and utility player Jonathan Embry, shortstop Cam Locklear and Brady Heide each finished the game with a
home run.

Two days prior, the Flames sneaked passed the Lancers 9-6, after scoring seven unanswered home runs.

In Friday’s game, Liberty put two quick home runs on the board during the second inning. After posting a single home run in the fourth inning, Longwood scored an additional five home runs in the fifth.

With the advantage in Longwood’s favor, the Flames propelled passed the adversity and posted seven unanswered home runs.

Saturday’s game, however, did not bring the desired result.

During Saturday’s game, Longwood struck the go-ahead blow with a two-run home run off of the bat of first baseman Justin Mitchell in the top of the ninth inning to send Liberty to 13-7 in the Big South and 25-16 overall.

Saturday’s loss marked the first time the Flames lost at home since March 27, according to libertyflames.com.

The game was a grueling back-and-forth battle that lasted nearly four hours.

Longwood opened up the scoring in the third inning when second baseman Nate Blakeney drove a double to the gap in right field to score Mitchell and give the Lancers a 1-0 lead. In the bottom of the frame, shortstop Cam Locklear drove a ground ball down the right field line for a leadoff triple. Right fielder Brandon Rohrer then followed up with a sacrifice fly to tie the game at one.

Skirrow lasted just four and one-third innings and had mixed results. He only let up two runs but had to pitch around traffic on the bases all night long.

“His pitch count got up,” Flames head coach Scott Jackson said. “Noah fights the count. I mean, it was behind 2-0 early and then you’re putting a lot of pressure on some of those pitches with runners on, but credit to him. He battled for us. I’d just like to see him get deeper in the game.”

The Flames were continually able to string together productive at bats and respond immediately to Longwood’s offensive output on multiple occasions.

“We’ve done that all year, offensively,” Jackson said. “I mean, we get behind and the next thing you know we’ve tied it or we’ve got the lead… We try to talk to our guys about if you get to two strikes, it’s not big deal and to go up there with confidence.”

After Longwood added a run in the sixth, liberty put together a big three-run seventh inning off Lancers starter Steven Farkas. First baseman Dylan Allen scored on a sacrifice fly off the bat of second baseman Trey McDyre. Artis and catcher Tre Todd then followed suit with back-to-back RBI hits to make it 6-4 in favor of the Flames.

It was a tie game heading into the top of the ninth, and then it was not. After getting the first out of the inning, Hand gave up a single which brought Mitchell to the plate. After getting ahead on the Longwood first baseman he left a pitch up and Mitchell promptly uncorked it into the bullpen beyond the right field wall to give the Lancers the lead.

“The fact that we can’t finish hitters with two strikes is what beat us tonight,” Jackson said. “With Mason, we got the eighth inning, and he’s got the first three hitters with – I think two of them were 0-2, one of them was 1-2 – and we can’t finish. Same thing with Mitchell on the home run, you know. We’re just trying to show him a different look there and try to get underneath his barrel on the inner-half and try to open up the outer-half, and we leave it up.”

“I really like some of that resiliency,” Jackson said. “Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough for us tonight. You have to credit Longwood. I thought they were great, they played with energy and, you know, they were just better than we were late in the game.”

Liberty’s next game will be head-to-head with Virginia Tech Wednesday, May 2.

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