April 27, 2008

Final Stats

The Bisons played through the rain on Sunday, defeating East Tennessee State University 4-3 on a wild pitch in the bottom of the ninth.

The Bisons struck first, plating three runs in the bottom of the third. With two outs, Allen Bolden doubled to get the offense started. After the Bucs walked the next batter, Caleb Joseph, Blake Bratcher drilled his second home run of the season to give the Bisons the 3-0 lead.

The Bucs got two of the runs back against Bisons' starter, Mike Dunn, in the top of the fourth to pull within one.

The Bucs tied the score in the sixth, after Paul Hoilman scored on a wild pitch.

Right-hander, Kyle Tognazzini, relieved Dunn with one out in the eighth. In 7.1 innings of work, Dunn gave up three runs, one earned, on one hit while striking out five in the no-decision.

"Dunn pounded the strike zone even through the rain," Bratcher said. "He only gave up one hit. You couldn't have asked for a better start for him."

The Bisons defeated the Bucs after pinch runner, Brad Gooch scored on a wild pitch in the ninth to give Lipscomb the 4-3 walk off win.

"It is good when we can pull out a win even when we aren't on our A game," Bratcher said. "Now we are heading to Winthrop for four games. We need to get our offense back going at Winthrop and then we can build on that going into the final games of the season."

Tognazzini earned the win to improve to 6-0 throwing 1.2 innings while giving up just one hit and striking out three.

"You look for him to pitch in every game because you know when he gets in there he is going to shut their offense down," Bratcher said. "With his energy and his focus, we want to get him in there as much as we can."

With the win, the Bisons improved to 23-20 on the season and 17-10 in the conference. They will be back in action when they travel to Rock Hill, SC, to take on Winthrop in a four game series with the first game set to kick off at 6 p.m. on May 2.