No. 2 Seed Baseball Advances to AAC Tournament Semifinals

KINGSPORT, Tenn.- A career-high 15 strikeouts from Justin Jackson helped No. 3 seed Tennessee Wesleyan hold No. 8 seed Montreat College scoreless in their Appalachian Athletic Conference (AAC) Tournament game on Thursday. The 16th-ranked Bulldogs won the game 7-1 to move one game away from the AAC Tournament Championship game. 

As Jackson dealt strikeouts, the TWU offense scored one run in the each of the first three innings. The run in the first inning came from Allan Gil Fernandez, who kicked off the hitting for the Bulldogs with a single. Moving to second on a single by Rob Gordon and third on a ground out on the next at-bat, Fernandez scored on a passed ball to give the team a 1-0 lead. 

The second run was an instant strike as Kolton Reynolds blasted a ball over the left field wall for a solo home run, moving the lead to 3-0. Fernandez, this time using a double to get on base in the third inning and got to third on Gordon's bunt single, scored the third run of the game on Josh Shelly's sacrifice fly.

The offense put their remaining four runs on the board in the fifth inning. With two outs already in the inning, Gordon kept the bats alive with a single. A hit by pitch allowed Shelly to join Gordon on the bases before David Ballenilla hit a double that brought in both base runners. A double to left field by Reynolds helped Ballenilla score the sixth run while a single by Brayan Espinoza helped Reynolds complete his time around the bases, giving the team their seventh run of the game. Montreat scored their lone run in the ninth inning.

Reynolds and Ballenilla each had two RBIs in the win.

Tennessee Wesleyan (38-14) plays their first semifinal game on Friday against the winner of No. 2 seed Johnson University and No. 8 seed Montreat College, who are set to play at 12:00 p.m. on Friday. The game for the Bulldogs is set for 6:00 p.m.