ADRIAN, Mich. — The No. 4 seed Albion baseball team fell to the No. 1 seed Adrian, 5-4, on a walkoff single in the 10th inning of the first day of the MIAA Tournament at Nicolay Field.
The Britons held the lead for the entire game up until the walkoff. They also no-hit the Bulldogs until the seventh inning.
Albion got their first run of the game on a
Jack LaPorte single in the first to make it 1-0. They plated their final three in the fifth off
Carter Stahl and
Max Holser singles as well as an error that scored Stahl to take a 4-0 advantage.
The Bulldogs got momentum in the seventh after their first hit of the game. The next at bat resulted in an RBI single to close the gap within three. After starter
Brendan Schultz was relieved by
Tyler Murphy a batter later, Murphy hit a batter to load the bases and later walk in a run to make it 4-2.
Adrian chipped at the Albion advantage once more in the eighth on a two-out single to cut the deficit to 4-3.
Then in the ninth, the Bulldogs led off with a single while the runner moved over to third after a sacrifice bunt. The next batter reached on a fielder's choice which brought the game-tying run home.
After a 1-2-3 top half of the 10th, Adrian led off the home half of the frame with a walk followed by a sacrifice bunt that moved the runner into scoring position. Two batters later, the walkoff single came.
Schultz pitched an efficient 6.2 innings giving up two hits, two runs and four walks while striking out six. Murphy threw the final 2.2 frames in the loss.
Evan Schuster, Stahl and Holser each notched two hits for the Britons.
Up Next
Albion must win four consecutive games to become MIAA Tournament champions. They will face the loser of No. 2 Alma vs. No. 3 Kalamazoo (not final at the time of publishing) on Thursday, May 7 at 10 a.m. If the Britons win, they will play the loser of Adrian vs. winner of Alma/Kalamazoo at 4 p.m. the same day.
