Post-Game Interview  |  Photo Gallery

SALISBURY, Md. – Bethune-Cookman scored nine runs in its first three innings at-bat and never looked back, defeating Norfolk State 11-1 on Saturday afternoon to win the 2017 MEAC Baseball Tournament championship at Perdue Stadium.

The Wildcats (33-23) won the conference's baseball title for the third time in the last four years. They defeated NSU (26-22) in each of those victories.

The Spartans, who advanced to the championship the hard way through the loser's bracket, scored the game's first run. Starting pitcher Brian Beard led off the game with a sharp double past the bag at third base. After a failed pickoff attempt, he scored on Alex Mauricio's sacrifice fly.

But the hot-hitting Wildcats were too much for a Spartan team whose pitching staff was taxed after playing two high-scoring games on Friday. The first four B-CU players reached in the bottom of the first, with Jameel Edney bringing home Demetrius Sims with a single and Danny Rodriguez plating two more runs with a high-bounding single up the middle that made it 3-1.

In the second, the Wildcats scored four more times. Sims and Austin Garcia hit RBI doubles and Edney a second run-scoring single. Sims and Adonis Lao both hit RBI singles in the fourth to stretch the Wildcat lead to 9-1.

A double steal of home and second and a bloop RBI single by Nate Sterijevski accounted for the final two Wildcat runs in the sixth and provided them the 10-run margin required to stop the game by the 10-run rule after the top half of the seventh.

Donte Lindsay (3-7) pitched a complete game for B-CU, allowing just four hits and one unearned run in seven innings to earn the win. Beard, making his fifth start of the season, yielded 12 hits and nine runs in four innings pitched.

Stephen Baughan, Devin Hemmerich, Andre' Moore and Justin Burrell were named to the all-tournament team from NSU.

Sims finished 3-for-4 with two RBI and three runs for B-CU. Sterijevski, Edney, Lao and tournament MVP Rodriguez had two hits each.

TOURNAMENT NOTES
- NSU has won the last three regular-season MEAC North titles with a total of 82 overall wins (82-59) and 54 MEAC wins (54-17) in that time.

- The Spartans were making their eighth MEAC Tournament finals appearance. Seven of those times, NSU advanced through the loser's bracket and in six of those, the Spartans lost to B-CU.

- Baughan led NSU during the tournament with a .500 average (7-for-14) which included three doubles, a homer and five RBI. Moore hit .438 (7-for-16) with two steals and Burrell hit .429 (6-for-14) with three steals. Hemmerich earned the win in Thursday's win over N.C. A&T.

- The Spartans finished the season with 105 steals, a new Division I-era record.

- Hemmerich ended his career with career records for wins (24) and strikeouts (315). He set single-season NSU records this year for strikeouts (118) and innings pitched (105.1) and tied the school record with 10 victories.