A high spot for Bradley's baseball season. This one raised some eyebrows in the national baseball press. A terrific win for Bradley on Sunday against North Carolina's Campbell University, which had the longest winning streak in D1 baseball. Campbell is leading its conference and has been a regular in the NCAA tournament in recent years.
It was a four-game weekend, a round-robin tournament in North Carolina.
Bradley lost two close games to Gardner-Webb University, the host. Both games ended on walk-offs as the Braves just didn't have a pitcher who could provide a shut-down 8th or 9th inning.
Perhaps no observer would have given the Braves a decent chance of beating Campbell in either of their two games. In the first game against Campbell, with all the better Braves pitchers having been used against Gardner-Webb, Campbell ran up the score, 14-3.
More of the same was expected on Sunday, and Campbell took an early lead, 3-0. But the Braves fought back with a grand slam by transfer Luke Skinner. After Gavin Thompson and Eli Lehrman pitched well, Josh Vaughn pitched 2.1 scoreless innings to close out the game for Bradley, ending the game with the tying run on third base.
It's a 1-3 trip to North Carolina, but had to be an emotional high point for the team.
The final three games of the Braves season will be this Thursday-Friday-Saturday at Dozer against the University of Illinois Chicago, which has been a surprise this season. UIC hasn't played a strong non-conference schedule, and isn't ranked highly in RPI, but has played well in conference, tied with Indiana State for first place going into the final weekend before the MVC tournament.