Adam Mills tied the school record with his 12th victory Thursday as the Niners captures the A-10 title. |
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Charlotte Baseball Wins First Atlantic 10 Baseball Championship 5-1 at Richmond
May 17, 2007
Richmond, Va. - On the 46th birthday of head coach Loren Hibbs, the Charlotte 49ers baseball team exploded for 16 hits on the road to upend Richmond and win the Atlantic 10 regular season conference title in a 5-1 final at Pitt Field on Thursday afternoon. The win gets Charlotte to 42-10 overall and 21-4 in league play, and captures the first A-10 baseball title for Charlotte in its second year in the league, and joining a pair of Metro Conference titles from the 90's.
Senior starting pitcher Adam Mills tied the school record with his 12th win of the season, and was one strike away from his ninth complete game of the season. Mills left the mound with an 0-2 count to Matt McKenna in the bottom of the ninth with two outs, when he felt "a tweak" in his leg. Richmond's lone run was unearned, dropping the second-lowest-ERA in the country to 1.06 for Mills. Sam Pierce came on from the bullpen to record the strikeout for his fourth save and seal the victory.
"The thing that makes me most proud about these guys," said Hibbs after the game, "is that they have been expected to win and have played with that kind of pressure all season." "We have taken maximum effort from opposing teams this season and still have managed to come out on top. That's difficult to do."
McKenna scored the only run of the day for Richmond (30-25, 18-8 A-10) on a groundout by teammate Benji Marshall in the third. The Spiders left six runners on base, including three runners at third base in the game.
Offensively, The Niners started slowly against starter Ian Marshall, finally getting to him in the fourth on three hits and a run. Charlotte scored left fielder Brad McElroy when he came home to tie game on a Chris Taylor RBI single. The first 12 hits by Charlotte were singles in the game.
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Charlotte had five hits in the fifth, including four in a row with two outs. Catcher Kris Rochelle, McElroy and Taylor hit consecutive RBI singles with two out to score three runs in that frame. Charlotte this season has 123 two-out RBI, allowing only 40.
The Niners managed a pair of doubles in the eighth to score the final run of the day, scoring Spencer Steedley, who doubled to start the inning, on an RBI single by Alex Burt.
Marshall took the loss for the Spiders, dropping to 3-4. He stepped in for the scheduled starter Alex Hale, who was a late scratch.
Charlotte saw three players have three hits in the game. Rochelle, Taylor and second baseman Cory Lane all hit a trio of singles for the Niners. McElroy had a pair of hits and he and Rochelle have season averages of .399 heading into the final two regular season games. Charlotte has only had five hitters finish at .400 or better in a season, and the last time it happened was the only time that teammates cracked that threshold. James Matan and Bo Robinson both hit above .400 in the 1998 season, earning a pair of All-America honors in the process. That also marks the last year that Charlotte went to an NCAA Regional Tournament, another goal for the Niners in 2007.
Mills is 12-2 with 132 strikeouts and the 1.06 ERA. He has eight complete games and four shutouts this season, and has started two more combined shutout appearances. He has tossed 127.2 innings, and is 6.2 innings from the most in a season in team history. He is also just 12 strikeouts behind the all-time single season leader. Former Niner John Maine (currently with the N.Y. Mets) is the player Mills is chasing in both categories, marks he achieved when he was the Conference USA Pitcher of the Year in 2001. Maine is the only other Niner to get to 12 wins in a season.
On the career list, Mills is nine innings shy of the career innings pitched list with at least one and maybe two starts left this season. Mills moved ahead of former Niner Tim Collie for the most career wins in program history (30), having already passed Collie with 49 starts five and shutouts.
Charlotte has two games remaining in the regular season, both at Richmond Friday and Saturday. Charlotte is one win shy of the school-record of 43 wins in a season (1998: 43-19). Richmond is just one game ahead of Fordham for the second-seed and an opening round bye in the next week's A-10 Tournament.
Saturday, both teams return to Pitt Field for a 1 p.m. start as two left-handed pitchers get the start. Steedley opposes freshman Matt Zielinski.
