UWA baseball

from school reports

PEARL — For the second consecutive time this season, the second-ranked University of West Alabama baseball team and No. 10 Delta State used extra innings to decide the outcome, as UWA (24-4, 3-0 GSC) picked up a 7-5, 10 inning win at Trustmark Park.

Matt Busbee put the Diamond Tigers up in the 10th, singling up the middle to score Rob Dahlberg. Nick Wheeler followed with a sacrifice fly to right field to score Tres Avans and put UWA up 7-5.

Kasey Nafzger (3-0) picked up the win, pitching 4 2/3 innings in relief. The Westerville, Ohio-product allowed one run on two hits with five strikeouts in his second longest outing of the season.

UWA opened the contest scoring three runs in its first trip to the plate. Avans hit a one out double to right center to open the scoring for the Tigers, pushing Jake DeRoy and Dahlberg. Busbee followed with a single to right field to score Avans.

Back-to-back home runs in the third inning by Dahlberg and Avans pushed the Red and White lead to 5-0 after three innings.

DSU (18-8) knotted the contest at 5-5 in the sixth inning. Clay Sartain started the scoring, doubling to right field to score Michael Niemann. A Rickey Noland walk loaded the bases, as Chris Clark followed with a single to left field score Devin Goodwin. With the bases loaded remaining loaded, J. T. Taylor drew a walk to score Sartain. Steven Oswald drove in Clark and Noland, but ended the inning, as he was erased trying to advance to second.

No. 2 West Alabama returns to action on Friday, March 21, as the Tigers host Montevallo in a three-game, weekend series. Action starts with a doubleheader on Friday, beginning at 4 p.m. The series will conclude on Saturday with first pitch time of 1 p.m. The series will be aired on Y-104.9-FM and at athletics.uwa.edu.