LEXINGTON, SC–
Hunter Lipscomb's walk-off single in the tenth inning lifted No. 1 seed Winthrop to a 4-3 opening round win over No. 8 Campbell in the 2017 Big South Conference Baseball Championship Tournament at the Lexington County Baseball Stadium.
With the win, the Eagles (32-22) advance to Friday's winner's bracket game against the victor of the Thursday night's late game between No. 4 High Point and No. 5 Radford. Campbell (25-31) faces the loser of that game which wasn't scheduled to begin until 11:50 p.m.
Lipscomb went 4-for-6 at the plate and drove home all four of Winthrop's runs as the Eagles escaped an upset bid by the Camels, who tied the game with two runs in the ninth to send the game to extra innings.
Sophomore reliever
Dalton Whitaker earned the win with 1.2 innings of work to even his record at 3-3 while Camel reliever Erik Dowse suffered the loss to see his record fall to 1-3.
Winthrop scored the winning run off Dowse as
Mitch Spires reached second on a double to left center field and scored when Lipscomb drove a long fly ball that hit off the right field wall to end the game that last nearly four hours.
Campbell took a quick 1-0 lead in the top of the first when Jeff Hahs doubled to right center field off
Nate Pawelczyk and scored on a one-out single by designated hitter Cole Hallum.
The Eagles quickly tied things up at 1-1 as they scored in the bottom of the inning when Lipscomb's two-out single off Camels starter Wes Noble scored
Anthony Paulsen from second. Paulsen had walked and moved into scoring position following another walk to Spires.
Winthrop took a 2-1 lead in the third.
Grant English led off the inning with a single and moved to second on another walk to Paulsen. Lipscomb came through with an RBI double to right to plate English.
The Eagles took a 3-1 lead in the seventh when they took advantage of what appeared to be a ready-made inning ending double play grounder to the shortstop that skipped through the legs of Adam Wyse and allowed English to score from third base.
Campbell tied the game in the ninth when Kevin Barron led off with an opposite field home run to right field to make it a one-run game. The Camels took advantage of a bad hop infield single that allowed Christian Jones to reach base. Jones moved to second when Drew Butler drew a walk and went to third on a wild pitch by Whitaker. Hahs lined a single to left that scored Jones to tie the game.
