FLORENCE, S.C. — The second-ranked University of North Georgia baseball team battled to the end, but was eliminated from the 2017 Peach Belt Conference Tournament on Friday evening with a 7-6 loss to Georgia College at Francis Marion's Sparrow Stadium. The Nighthawks advanced to the semifinal round earlier in the day with a 4-1 win over Georgia Southwestern.
North Georgia (42-10) will now await potential selection into the 2017 NCAA Division II Baseball Championship with the regional field, bracket and location announced on the annual online selection show on NCAA.com at 10:00 p.m. Sunday (May 14) night.
Game No. 1: North Georgia 4, Georgia Southwestern 1
Daniel McCrary pitched a complete-game two-hitter as the Nighthawks beat Georgia Southwestern for the second time in as many days.
McCrary finished the game in 130 pitches, collecting five strikeouts and walking two. The junior lefty improved to 10-1 with the win.
He becomes the first North Georgia NCAA-era pitcher to collect double figure wins.
North Georgia got on the board early with two runs in the first. With the bases loaded, Bill Leroy drew a walk to bring in the first run. Conner Corbitt then lifted a pop up that was ruled an infield fly, bringing home Michael Gouge on the sacrifice fly.
North Georgia added two runs in the eighth as Corbitt led off with a double and later scored on Andres Perez's sacrifice fly. Steven Tomlinson later scored on a safety squeeze bunt from Devin Gearhart.
Kal Dempsey was the only Nighthawk to collect more than one hit as he went 2-for-3. Gouge and Corbitt had the only extra-base hits in the game.
Game No. 2: Georgia College 7, North Georgia 6
North Georgia jumped out to a quick 2-0 lead in the first inning on RBI-singles by Trevor Sams and Bill Leroy.
After GC evened up the score in the third, the Nighthawk offense struck again in the bottom half with a RBI-double from Michael Gouge and a RBI-single from Corbitt.
North Georgia would extend its lead to 5-2 after plating a single run in the fifth, but the Bobcats used five runs on five hits in the sixth inning to take the lead for good.
Both teams would register 10 hits on the night with Devin Gearhart, Sams, Hoover and Leroy each recording two hits apiece.
Josh Bryan (4-1) was tagged with his first loss of the season after surrendering two earned runs in the sixth inning.
Notes
- McCrary retired 15 batters in a row at one point as he allowed only four Hurricanes to reach base.
- Tonight's second game was North Georgia's third in the past 24 hours after ending play on Friday morning at 1:45 a.m., the Nighthawks returned on short rest for today's 1:30 and 8:30 first pitches.
- Michael Gouge extended his reached base streak to a team-best 34 games.
- North Georgia is ranked No. 2 behind Mount Olive in the final published Southeast Region poll. A likely NCAA regional berth would be the program's second in the last three years and third in the NCAA era.
