ALBANY, Ga. -- In two Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference tournament games this year, it has taken Miles a moment to get going offensively. But for the second straight game, the pitching held up long enough for the bats to catch up.
Christopher Elias (7-3) pitched 8 1/3 innings and allowed just five hits while striking out five, and
Will Cantey got the final two outs in relief with the winning run on base as the Golden Bears advanced in the winner's bracket with a 4-3 win over rival Tuskegee at ASU West Campus Field Friday morning. Miles (32-17) tied the school record for wins in a season and will look to break the mark Saturday morning against Albany State at 9 a.m.
Joshua Lewis homered in the bottom of the second for Tuskegee (15-31) and that 1-0 lead held up into the seventh. Miles had squandered several scoring opportunities earlier against Golden Tigers starter Christian Marshall (3-7) but finally broke through with two outs.
Jacob Bisharat drew a two-out walk with the bases loaded to get the Golden Bears on the board. Miles would take the lead in the eighth on a sacrifice fly by
Trevor Bates that scored
Kolby Brannon, who singled. Tuskegee looked as if it got out of the inning when reliever Gabriel Selochan struck out
Reeves Brashear, but the ball bounded away from the catcher, which allowed Brashear to reach and
Roderick Ransom to score for a 3-1 lead.
Tuskegee would get the first two runners on in the eighth before the Golden Bears executed the play of the game. Elias faked a pickoff move to second and and
Trevor Bates and and center fielder
Ryan Bargery acted as if the ball had sailed into center field. But it never left the glove of shortstop Brannon as Miles pulled off the hidden ball trick and tagged Lewis out in a run down.
Miles would get out of the eighth unscathed and added a RBI single by Brannon for a three-run cushion. The Golden Bears would need that run. After getting the first out before allowing a hit batter and a walk, Elias was pulled for Cantey, who would give up a two-run single to Tyari Albright to cut the deficit to one run. But with the tying run on second and the winning run on first, Cantey struck out Dominic Johnson to end the game and earn his second save.