 "Photo: Special to The Daily Gamecock")
Several local collegiate baseball players got an opportunity to play with the best this past weekend at Capital City Stadium here in Columbia as the U.S. National Baseball team played an exhibition game against the Columbia Blowfish on Sunday night.
The Blowfish carried a 2-1 lead through eight innings, but a two-out three-run homer by the University of Tennessee's Kentrail Davis gave the U.S. team a 4-2 lead which they would not relinquish.
Columbia started off strong as Winthrop University's Tyler McBride, a Columbia native, set down the National team in the only two innings in which he worked.
The Ridge View High School graduate set down all six batters he faced, four of which came by strikeout. He was the only Blowfish pitcher to pitch more than one inning of work in the game.
"We played well for the first eight innings and pitched well," McBride said. "But we can definitely gain on this, take something from this and hopefully get a little better."
The Blowfish got on the board with their only two runs in the first inning. After Sean Sullivan of Winthrop singled with one out, a double by Coastal Carolina's Rich Witten's brought in the first run of the game. The second run was brought home via single by current Gamecock first baseman Jesse Barbaro.
However, Barbaro was thrown out at second base attempting to stretch the base hit into a double.
That lead stood until the eighth inning when Davis broke loose. The Theodore, Ala. native gave the U.S. the go-ahead runs on his monster blast to dead centerfield.
Davis, who broke his bat on the homerun, hopes that his recent strong play will be enough to earn him a spot on the National team's roster before they head overseas.
"I just hope I can stay hot," Davis said. "Even if I make the team, I hope I can carry it on overseas and help out the U.S.A. team a lot."
As its exhibition season concluded, the Southeastern Conference Freshman All-American led the team in homeruns and RBIs with six and 19, respectively.
However, U.S.A. was far from done as it added three valuable insurance runs in the top of the ninth inning, allowing the collegiate all-stars to escape Columbia with the 7-2 win.
Georgia Tech's Derek Dietrich blasted a solo roundtripper and Cal. State Fullerton's Josh Fellhauer added a two-run shot of his own to erase any doubt of a Blowfish comeback.
"When that go-ahead run scored in the eighth inning, there was a big letdown on our part," Blowfish coach Tim Medlin said. "We really believed we could play with these guys. We've got good players and we felt like we could win. Up until that point, we did everything we needed to do to win, but you've got to play nine innings."
Erik Sommerville of Francis Marion took the loss for the Blowfish after giving up four runs on three hits while Arizona State's Mike Leake picked up the win after giving up only one hit and recording a strikeout in over two innings of work.
The Blowfish look to rebound as they host the Fayetteville Swampdogs tonight at Capital City Stadium.
Be the first to comment on this article!