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NORFOLK, Va. – No. 2 seed North Carolina A&T scored the winning runs on a two-out dropped fly ball in the bottom of the eighth inning and held on for a 4-2 win over No. 5 Norfolk State on Thursday afternoon in a first-round game of the 2008 MEAC Baseball Championship.
With the game tied at 2-all, the Aggies (28-28) got back-to-back two-out singles by C.J. Beatty and Joe McIntyre in the eighth off NSU reliever Quinn Bright (Virginia Beach, Va.). Nick Rogers followed with a long fly ball to the wall in left-center, but the ball was dropped for a two-run error.
A&T reliever John Primus worked around a single by Brad Stephenson (Chesapeake, Va.) and his own one-out error to hold the Spartans (21-23) off in the top of the ninth. Primus (5-4) got the win by pitching 2.1 scoreless innings of relief. Bright (5-6) was the loser, allowing the two unearned runs in one inning of relief.
N.C. A&T got on the board first. Jeremy Jones reached on a one-out single and scored on McIntyre's two-out double in the top of the first off NSU starter Joey Seal (Newport News, Va.).
The Spartans answered emphatically in the fourth. With one out, Stephenson hit a log solo home run to left field off Aggies starter Tim Johnson, tying the game at 1-all. It was Stephenson's second homer of the year.
NSU took a 2-1 lead in the sixth as Anselmo Cantu (Virginia Beach, Va.) lined a sharp double down into the right-field corner, scoring TiQuan Griffin (Florence, S.C.) from first base.
The Aggies tied it at 2-all in the bottom of the sixth. James Howard reached on an error to start the inning. With the bases loaded and one out, NSU was in position to get out of the inning when Rogers hit a slow roller to shortstop. The Spartans got the second out of the fame on a force at second, but Rogers was ruled safe on the relay throw at first, allowing Howard to score from third.
Both Seal and Johnson pitched well, but neither factored into the decision. Johnson allowed eight hits and two runs with eight strikeouts in 6.2 innings. Seal gave up just five hits and two runs, one earned, over seven innings. He walked just one, an intentional pass, and struck out one.
Stephenson and Cantu each went 2-for-4 for the Spartans, who out-hit the Aggies 9-7. Jones and McIntyre had three hits each for N.C. A&T.
NSU plays a 10 a.m. elimination game on Friday against No. 6 Maryland Eastern Shore, which fell 13-1 to Bethune-Cookman in the tournament opener on Thursday. The Aggies face the winner of Thursday's 6 p.m. game between No. 3 Florida A&M and No. 4 Delaware State.
