[bigsmooth]

Virginia Military Institute
Lexington, VA

Gray-Minor Stadium
Capacity- 1,400

Friday- 6:00 pm
Saturday (DH)- 2:00 pm. second game to follow

The Flames look to win their fifth Big South series this season over fourth place VMI who stands at 19-17-1 and 8-7 in the Big South. VMI lost to VCU 4-2 on Wednesday and LU lost to William & Mary 11-5 on wednesday. Look to see the same rotation as last weekend with Niggli, Evans, and Linza which seemed to be good to give Keegan more rest. Go Flames!!

[krh44]

Flames down 2-1 in 6th

[krh44]

Tied at 2

[krh44]

Flames Win 3-2

[bigsmooth]

good start to the weekend! niggli was terrific as usual and garrett baker was great as well! looking forward to the DH tomorrow.

[SuperJon]

Great feeling to be on the good side of a close game.

[aredd33]

Would it be worth driving from Lynchburg to Lexington today? Or is the weather going to change the games today?

[BJWilliams]

Jeff jefferson deposits one over the leftfield fence and LU leads game 1 3-0 (his was a solo shot mind you...J-Size had a two run bomb in the second)

[flamesfilmguy]

is this game on the libertychannel.com?

[BJWilliams]

Matty crushes one to the deepest part of the park and LU leads 5-2 top of the 8th

[BJWilliams]

After giving up a grand slam in the bottom of the 8th, The Flames get back to back jacks from Zack Haley and Jeff Jefferson and retake the lead 7-6 in the top of the 9th

[krh44]

Wow what a win today!!!!!!!!!!

[BJWilliams]

yup...Flames take game 1 8-6 hitting 5 home runs...3 of them from the 8 and 9 hitters

[Trottalot]

Liberty lost 3-1. Now let me tell you how Toman lost this game for us. First it was the lineup...lefty pitcher for VMI and we DH Parmley and play J. Thompson at CF...both left handed batters. As you can see Doug struck out 3 times and did not fare too well. HE is always wanting to get lefties in there; but not against a lefty pitcher.
Second you look at the seventh inning. We are down 2-1 with runners on second and third with one out; and we let Thompson(batting .087) bat and he strikes out. We have lots of better hitters on the bench and we don't pinch-hit. He has no clue; and then later in the eighth he gets tossed because he didn't want to finish managing this mess. It's sad these players can't play for a man who knows how to manage. There was a reason USC let him go; because they got a lot better coach from UNC and made him the highest paid assistant in the country.

[BJWilliams]

You just have to come on and slam everything if we lose dont you? Doug is swinging a white hot bat righ tnow (the second game today notwithstanding) and how many times do you see a team take the same lineup into both ends of a doubleheader...anyway the computer lab is closing or Id offer some additional statements but if all youre going to do is come on when we lose then you better be here when we win like we did in the first game today and give some credit

[Trottalot]

You just have to come on and slam everything if we lose don't you? Doug is swinging a white hot bat righ tnow (the second game today notwithstanding) and how many times do you see a team take the same lineup into both ends of a doubleheader...anyway the computer lab is closing or Id offer some additional statements but if all youre going to do is come on when we lose then you better be here when we win like we did in the first game today and give some credit

BJ, I have no problem giving credit when it is dew. The first game the boys hit five long balls to win this game, all right hand batters by the way. I was not dogging Doug as he has been on fire; just used him as an example of how lefties struggle with lefties. We lost a good chance to make up ground on Coastal dew to bad decisions by the coaching staff. Not a Toman fan at all; but neither are the players. lol But hey, I guess there is nothing wrong with finishing second every year.

[SuperJon]

Beej, Toman is a great coach when we're hitting home runs. That's his coaching philosophy. When we don't hit homers, things aren't as pretty. And we change lineups much more than just "both ends of a doubleheader."

[BJWilliams]

You do realize Jon that in this most recent run of games (starting with the HPU series) there were only three games where we hit at least one home run? Plenty of hits...but only three games with at least one HR (one of them coming in our little home run derby today in game 1). Yes we do well when we hit home runs but if you look and the breakdown of a lot of the games of late, we're not exactly launching balls out of the yard at an alarming rate. If fact, when we beat HPU a couple weeks ago, when we dropped that 7-spot in the 9th...not a single home run in the bunch. My point is that it may be his philosophy that we hit a lot of home runs, but we certainly are making good use of small ball tactics and throwing in some well timed and well placed extra base hits that arent leaving the yard.

[SuperJon]

Yes, Beej, I know all of that. What I was saying though is a game like the first one today is what makes Toman look like a great coach. He doesn't have to do a lot of managing. In games that were in extra innings or decided by two runs or less we are 8-7. Of those seven losses, five of them came when the team scored runs to tie and take the lead in the 7th inning or later. Four of them came in the 8th or 9th inning. When things get tight, we lose a lot of the time.

Edit: To take it even further, only two of the eight wins were when we scored in the last two innings to take the lead, and one of those was after giving up the lead in the 8th (VMI). In two of the games we gave up a run to make the game a one run game in last inning.

If the game is within two runs in the last two innings don't turn the game off cause there's a good chance it's going to get exciting, and not in a good way.

[aredd33]

We are down 2-1 with runners on second and third with one out; and we let Thompson(batting .087) bat and he strikes out. We have lots of better hitters on the bench and we don't pinch-hit.

Who comes in to play center if Toman pinch hits for JT?

[bigsmooth]

we take 2 of 3 and some are whining about coaching. I was at the game and our bats were silent in game two, and we were on the losing end of some bad calls by phelps prescott. Keegan pitched pretty well today which is good to see. His fast ball velocity is not what is has been, but overall he kept the ball down and did very well. We need that going down the stretch. The first game....evans was terrific, but our defense let us down, but thank goodness the sticks were alive. With Coastal losing 2 of 3 to high point this weekend, it makes the conference lead for coastal dwindle and i really think that LU could win the BSC if they can get over the mental aspect of losing to the Chants. Im thinking Swanson will start tuesday against South Carolina.

**In regard to coaching styles, Toman recruited big bats in Columbia and they produced. He was responsible for recruiting those players that helped win the CWS. The new asst. the Cocks have from UNC has a different philosophy. Is one better than the other? i do not know. Im not saying Toman is perfect because we have seen he is not, but i think he is doing a pretty good job, but needs to get a new pitching coach IMO.

[jenkins]

The only decision that didn't make sense was starting Thompson, unless parmley was injured and couldn't play the field (only dh). Def would have been nice to get another righty bat in there. There were 2 horrible calls in the first 3 innings, the first one cost us a run as the VMI runner was hosed at 3...i was 15 feet from that play and that was just brutal. The next guys gets a base hit and there comes the run.

I actually disagree about defense, we played super defense the first game with the exception of a 2 minute span where we didn't field a bunt cleanly and haley and parmely both booted the same ball. That first game Tyler made 5 or 6 MLB type 3rd base plays and Robertson and Dougie both had super diving catches.

As i said, the only thing that was questionable was starting Thompson, atleast IMHO

[bigsmooth]

one inning almost cost us the game is my point and we have made several errors in key points of many games this year. One error in an inning ok..but three??? inexcusable.

[The Natural]

IMHO

Can anyone say Brian Shoop ??? Or Maloney if he would leave Michigan ? How about Rod Delmonico ( a Liberty alum ) who went twice to Omaha ? I know for a fact he is available. Wait a minute...I think I hear that song in my head......

CHANGE CHANGE CHANGE !!!

[jbock13]

We can whine all we want, but in the end, Meat Loaf was right, 2 out of 3 ain't bad.