LYNCHBURG, Va. - Liberty University (25-30, 9-15 BSC) first baseman Jeffrey Brown's RBI single in the bottom of the 11th inning broke a 6-6 tie and handed VMI (23-32, 4-20 BSC) a 7-6 season ending Big South Conference loss Sunday afternoon at Worthington Stadium.
Flames' centerfielder Jeremiah Boles led off the bottom of the 11th with a line drive double off the right field wall. Boles was moved over to third base on a ground out to the right side of the infield and one batter later was driven home on Brown's base hit over the centerfielder's head.
The Keydets had trailed 6-1 after the fifth inning, but six walks and a hit batsman led to five VMI runs in the seventh inning and tied the game at 6-6. All five runs came across without a single hit or error in the inning.
Three Liberty pitchers combined to walk the six batters, including Phillip Thompson who walked all three of the Keydet hitters he faced before being pulled.
The Keydets initially fell behind 5-0 after one inning as Liberty used four singles and a three-run home run from third baseman Carlos Garcia to take the early lead on VMI starter Duke Acors (Richmond, Va. / Atlee).
Centerfielder Thane Smith's (Virginia Beach, Va. / First Colonial) lead off third inning double led to the Keydets first run of the game as first baseman Jonathan Hadra (Richmond, Va. / Atlee) singled him to third and second baseman B.T. Good (Vienna, Va. / James Madison) followed with an RBI ground out, setting the score at 5-1.
Fifth inning doubles from Brown and second baseman Joshua Butcher increased the Flames lead to 6-1.
VMI was able to stay in the game due to some strong pitching out of the bullpen. Keydets' long reliever Jimmy Thoms (Newport News, Va. / Denbigh) replaced Acors with one out and one on in the fifth inning and retired the next two batters to get VMI out of a jam.
Jeff DeMara (Chesapeake, Va. / Great Bridge) came on for the Keydets in the seventh and threw four scoreless innings before turning the ball over to Richard Litwin (Virginia Beach, Va. / Ocean Lakes) (3-4) in the 11th.
Liberty's Chris Zuvich (4-3) was the Flames scheduled starter but was scratched prior to game time. He ended up coming out of the bullpen to throw LU's final 4.1 innings and yielded only two hits as he earned the win.
Four Liberty batters recorded three hits on the day including Boles, who came within two hits of tying the Flames single season hit record as Sunday was also LU's final game of 2004.
With the win, the Flames swept the three game series from the Keydets.
Neither VMI nor Liberty qualified for the Big South Conference Tournament scheduled to begin Wednesday in Rock Hill, S.C.


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