Baseball
 

May 15, 2008

Trinity Defeats Cal State-East Bay at Regionals

Abilene, Texas - The Tiger baseball team defeated Cal State-East Bay 8-3 at the NCAA West Regional Tournament on Friday night at Walt Driggers Field.

Trinity (34-13) jumped ahead 6-0 through the first six innings, as starting pitcher Brian Oates tossed six shutout innings of one-hit ball to open the game. 

Oates (8-2) gave up just three runs on five hits through seven innings, striking out 10 batters to tie the school's NCAA Regional record.  Clint Robertson came on for the final two innings, giving up one hit and striking out one to earn his third save of the year.

Cal State-East Bay finally broke through on the scoreboard with a two-run homer in the seventh inning, then added another run in the eighth to make it 6-3 heading to the bottom half of that inning.

In the eighth, Trinity's Dylan Early hit a two-run shot to right field - his third homer of the regional tournament - to give the team a pair of much-needed insurance runs.  Early finished 2-4 in the game, also cracking a double.

Kyle Felix was 2-5 with two doubles and two RBI, while Evan Jones and Kevin Jackson also had a pair of hits.  Jeff Claydon, who had three hits in yesterday's game, drove in two runs against Cal State-East Bay today.

Jordan Pennington also doubled and scored a run, while Stosh Hoover drew four walks in the game.  Hoover now has 39 walks this season, needing one more to become the third player in Trinity history to record 40 or more in one year.

Trinity will take on top-ranked Chapman University tomorrow at noon.  Chapman and Trinity are the lone unbeaten teams left in the West Regional Tournament, and both currently stand 2-0.  The winner of tomorrow's game will go on to Saturday's championship game.