[bigsmooth]

Gardner-Webb University Runnin Bulldogs
Boiling Springs, NC

John Henry Moss Stadium
capacity- 700
http://www.gwusports.com/ViewArticle.db ... =205055489

official baseball site: http://www.gwusports.com/SportSelect.db ... PSID=46190

Friday- 6:00 pm
Saturday- 6:00 pm
Sunday- 1:00 pm

live stats and audio- http://www.libertyflames.com

The Flames (15-6 Big South, 29-19 overall ) 2nd place in the BSC hit the road for a key series with Gardner-Webb (12-9, BSC, 28-17-1 overall) who is tied for third with Charleston Southern. LU has won seven straight games and GWU is coming off getting swept by #16 Clemson.

Probable Liberty Starters
John Niggli 4-2 (2.94 ERA)
Steven Evans 5-3 (3.18 ERA)
Keegan Linza 8-3 (2.31 ERA)

Probable GWU Starters
Emilio Pagan 3-2 (2.96 ERA)
Kyle Paeplow 3-2 (6.02 ERA)
Conner Scarborough 6-2 (7.24 ERA) or Erik Heiligenstadt 3-4 (5.96 ERA)

[BJWilliams]

They have a couple pitchers with Lynchburg area connections in Eric Heiligenstadt (Jefferson Forest) and Brock Wilson (Liberty Christian Academy). We need to take at least two to not only lock up a 30 win season (if we win one) but probably clinch no worse than the #2 seed going into the final series at home against Radford next weekend

[bigsmooth]

softball pre-empted baseball tonight, but matty ice hit a 2 run HR in the 4th and the flames lead 2-1 in the bottom of the 5th.

[krh44]

3-1 now

[krh44]

GW ties it up

[krh44]

Down 4-3
Not sure why we would try to steal home w/ bases loaded and 1 out in 6th??

[krh44]

4-4 in 10th

[krh44]

Flames take the "L" 5-4

[bigsmooth]

i have no idea why we did that!!! does not make any dang sense at all!...poor coaching.

[jbock13]

Poor coaching? Toman? No way...

Reminds me of football this past year. Good coaching until we do something absolutely stupid.

[sporter]

Did Doug Bream get hurt again last night?

[krh44]

Up 5-3 in game 2

[krh44]

6-4 in 9th

[krh44]

Flames Win

[BJWilliams]

We faced both guys from the Lynchburg area today in that game...I covered JF once for the News and Advance and Heiligenstadt is a good pitcher, looks like he is still adusting to the collegiate game a bit but I think he will do well in time. Good win for the Flames today

[jenkins]

number 30 is always a nice number. I said a couple months ago we would struggle to reach 30 this year, glad i was wrong on that since we still have atleast 8 games left counting tourney. I would guess doug did get hurt again since he was out of the lineup again today. I wish there was a pitch count stat because our guys have thrown so many pitches it's crazy. It seems like we only operate with about 4 or 5 guys now.

[SuperJon]

If we didn't crap away yesterday's game we could be one game out of first place right now.

[bigsmooth]

exactly SJ. Coastal is giving us every chance to win this thing. It was a nice win today though!

[SuperJon]

It was a very good win. Every win is a good win. I just want to see us get to a regional. We've had four 1-run conference losses and we're two games out of first. Imagine if we would've won half of those, especially one of the two against Coastal.

[jenkins]

you could really say that about the whole season. We are a few tough errors and blown saves away from having about 37 or 38 wins right now. VT home game, 1st mercer game, binghampton loss, 2 coastal games, last night, first william and mary game, jmu game. Thats just off the top of the head, those are all games where we've had sizeable leads in teh 7th inning on and made a big error or pitching has blown the game. Just say we win half of those games and were at 36 or 37 at worst right now.

[jbock13]

you could really say that about the whole season. We are a few tough errors and blown saves away from having about 37 or 38 wins right now. VT home game, 1st mercer game, binghampton loss, 2 coastal games, last night, first william and mary game, jmu game. Thats just off the top of the head, those are all games where we've had sizeable leads in teh 7th inning on and made a big error or pitching has blown the game. Just say we win half of those games and were at 36 or 37 at worst right now.

I think you're thinking a little too much.

[jenkins]

i dont think so...i dont think you know enough about what a quality bullpen does for a team.

[SuperJon]

I think Jenkins is spot on.

[BJWilliams]

I agree...you want to be able to call upon any number of guys when you have a lead instead of always extending your starters 8 or 9 innings. Also, what happens if one of your top relievers goes down? Josh Richardson is out for about the next 10 months, and even when he gets back, might not pitch. Dane Beakler hasnt been in a game since his start at the Liberty tournament. Blake Forslund is coming around but he hasnt made an appearance since last weekend. you cannot (and Im sure Jon can offer a more expert opinion on this) go through a season using only 4 or 5 pitchers or even 6 the majority of the time. Youre going to need at least a couple other good relievers outside of your rotation that you can call upon in a tight spot. When you get to tournament play like we will be in about 10 days, youre going to need as many arms ready to go as possible...and they need to be able to come in and shut a team down because you dont want have to come to a situation where you need to win 5 games in three days (like the softball team did just this weekend) and have no one left. With baseball (unlike softball), you cant bring a guy back to pitch on back to back days, especially after the starter pitched a complete game. If you only have two maybe three relievers that you can call on and depend on, youre not going to last come Friday and Saturday (especially in a format like the Big South uses).

[BJWilliams]

Liberty hangs on and wins 3-2 and takes the series from Gardner-Webb, giving the stick and ball teams 4 wins over the Runnin Bulldogs on the weekend, and possibly clinching the #2 seed for the Flames with one weekend to go