Baseball Falls 1-0 in Suspended Game

MOBILE, Ala. - Patrick Weaver's single up the middle in the bottom of the 13th gave South Alabama a 1-0 victory over Middle Tennessee in a game that started more than an hour late Friday and ended Saturday afternoon at Stanky Field.

South Alabama (27-15, 8-5 SBC) ended what was a very long game very quickly when it restarted at 1 p.m. on Saturday.

Joel Morris walked to leadoff the bottom of the 13th against Nick Marrs before lightning suspended the game Friday night. Tyler Jones put down a bunt on the restart against Middle Tennessee's Josh Anderson, and Anderson's throw to second sailed into centerfield, putting runners on the corners.

Weaver then singled up the middle against Tommy Sterritt, plating Morris for a 1-0 Jaguars victory.

Morris (0-1) walked the only batter he faced, taking the loss, while Chase Christianson (5-2) picked up the win with 3.0 shutout innings, allowing two hits and striking out three.

Middle Tennessee (18-15, 5-5) and South Alabama played 12-and-a-half scoreless innings Friday night, with neither team scoring a run before the game was suspended because of rain for the second time Friday night at Stanky Field.

The Blue Raiders and Jaguars started 80 minutes late because of a rain storm that blew through the Mobile area around 4:30 p.m. Once the contest started, the two starting pitchers dominated, combining to throw 19 scoreless frames, striking out 19 and allowing just 13 hits.

Middle Tennessee's Matt Scott worked nine innings, striking out eight, walking one (intentionally) and giving up seven hits. South Alabama's P.J. Walters struck out 11 in 10 innings of work, allowing six hits and walking four.

Jeff Beachum, Nathan Hines and Michael McKenry both had two hits for Middle Tennessee, who had eight hits in the contest. Joel Collins collected three of South Alabama's nine hits in the game.

McKenry doubled to leadoff the second inning and Todd Martin followed with a walk, but Adam Warren struck out and Dillon Heath bounced into a doubleplay to end the threat quickly.

USA's Jones singled off the shoe of Scott in the third but was caught stealing on the next pitch. Weaver then reached on an infield single but David Freese bounced into an inning-ending twin-killing, keeping the game scoreless.

Martin singled to leftfield, just out of the reach of a diving Weaver. Warren squared to bunt and missed the pitch, but Martin moved to second when a pickoff throw went to first and was bobbled by Jeff Cunningham. Warren grounded out before Heath and Josh Horn both struck out, ending the inning with the game remaining scoreless.

The Jaguars had a chance to score in the bottom of the inning after one-out singles from Freese and Cunningham put runners on the corners. But Scott reached back, striking out David Doss and Aaron George to end the inning.

Beachum and Hines each had one-out singles for the Blue Raiders in the eighth, putting runners on the corners as well. But Wayne Kendrick's grounder back to the mound was fielded by Walters, who started a rundown with Freese tagging out Beachum. The runners moved to second and third and McKenry was ahead 2-0 in the count, but flied out to deep centerfield, ending the inning with the game still scoreless.

South Alabama loaded the bases in the 12th inning with walks to Doss and Guillermo Martinez and a single from Lance Heisler, but Joel Collins grounded out to end the inning against reliever Allan Woodward.

GAME NOTES
The game was delayed one hour and 20 minutes because of a bad rain storm that blew through the area around 4:30 p.m. ... Freshman Dillon Heath made his fifth start of the year and first in the outfield ... Jeff Beachum extended his hitting streak to 11 games with a single in the eighth ... The game was suspended in the bottom of the 13th at 10:43 p.m. and restarted Saturday at 1 p.m. It took just six minutes to end the contest that took 3:29 of total playing time but actually was 17:06 in total time from the scheduled start time.

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