After a rainout earlier in the semester, the Longwood club baseball team finally hit the field against the Virginia Commonwealth Rams. With a berth in the regional tournament on the line, a 13-2 victory on April 24 was enough to clinch the District II South Conference Championship after splitting a doubleheader, with 9-2 loss and 3-1 win.
Longwood finished the regular season with a 9-3 record to finish one game ahead of the Rams. Senior Dylan Caruso has high hopes for the games ahead, mentioning that they “beat (themselves)” in their losses this season.
The Lancers will be the only team representing the district due to the expansion of a new district this season. In previous seasons, the three district winners and a wild card team would make up the four slots in the regional tournament. This season’s expansion meant that there was only enough room for each district winner from the region's four.
The series was originally scheduled to be played in Richmond, Va. during the weekend of April 2 and 3. Mother Nature intervened, causing the Lancers to host a double-header this past Saturday, then they travelled to Dinwiddie, Va. for the series finale on Sunday.
In the Saturday twin bill, the Rams had an early lead and were able to keep the Longwood offense at bay on their way to a 9-2 win in Game 1.
Game 2 was a different story as senior southpaw Chris Bonner went the distance, throwing the full seven innings, notching four strikeouts and giving up just one run.
In the series finale with the season on the line, right-hander Caruso shut down the VCU offense while freshman outfielder Bailey Russell and sophomore infielder Zach Thurston stepped into the starting lineup at the last-minute to lift the offense in a 13-2 rout.
Caruso tossed five innings, striking out six and allowing two runs, both unearned. For the weekend, he went 8.1 innings allowing only one earned run and striking out twelve. He also went 4-for-7 at the plate over the series, scoring once.
Senior captain Scottie Lafferty was impressed by Caruso’s performance, “his pitching and hitting game, even his leadership on the field have helped us out a lot (with his addition to the team this year).”
Russell finished the series with four RBI's and scored twice, while Thurston went 1-for-1 and earned four walks on Sunday, scoring four runs of his own.
A few other Lancers that saw success at the plate included sophomore Eric Woodard who went 5-for-6 driving in three and scoring twice. Junior catcher Patrick McLaughlin had four hits in seven at-bats while driving in two and scoring three times, and Lafferty went 3-for-7 drawing three walks and scoring three runs.
For Lafferty and his fellow seniors Joe Stine and Jeffrey Strausser, this will be their second appearance at regionals. In 2012, they progressed but lost in the first round.
The Lancers are now waiting to learn their seeding in the tournament, with George Mason, St. Joseph's University and Loyola University Maryland as potential opponents. The tournament is scheduled to be in Purcell, Va. during the weekend of May 6-8.
