No. 1 Seed Baseball Scores Six in First Inning in Kingsport Bracket Win

KINGSPORT, Tenn.- The baseball team was scheduled to play their first game of the 2025 NAIA Baseball National Championship Opening Round in the Kingsport Bracket on Monday. The weather had different plans, though, as the forecasted weather forced the game to be moved to Tuesday. When Tuesday rolled around, the top-seeded Bulldogs went on to face the No. 4 seed Indiana Tech Warriors. TWU won the game 8-1. The game was held at Hunter Wright Stadium in Kingsport, Tenn.

The offense did most of their work in the first inning. The first four batters all recorded hits as Chris Catalano and Josh Shelly scored on Daniel Stewart's single to give the team a 2-0 lead. A single by Kolton Reynolds put runners on the corners as courtesy runner Jonathan Bosque got to third on the single and scored on a Corbin Shaw ground out. Reynolds stood on third after a Jack Stevens single and scored on Brayan Espinoza's double. Devin Dixon put the team up 6-0 at the end of the inning as both Stevens and Espinoza scored on his single. 

Espinoza added to the lead in the third inning, hitting a solo home run to move the team's lead to 7-0. After a run by Indiana Tech in the fourth, Blake Peyton went on a strikeout frenzy from the fifth to the seventh innings. Peyton struck out the next eight consecutive batters on his way to 15 strikeouts in eight innings of pitching. 

The final run of the game came for the Bulldogs in the seventh inning. Reynolds hit a double that brought in Shelly in the seven-run win.

Espinoza, Reynolds, Dixon, and Stewart each had two RBIs in the win. 

The win moves Tennessee Wesleyan (43-12) to the winner's bracket finale, where they will face the No. 3 seed Columbia College on Wednesday. The game is set to begin at 10:00 a.m.