RedStorm suffers season-ending loss to Golden Bears

Rio Grande Sports Information
     CHILLICOTHE, Ohio - The inability to consistently prevent opposing offenses from enoying big innings had been an issue for the University of Rio Grande baseball team all season long.
     It was again - one final time in the 2024 campaign - on Friday morning in the River States Conference Championship.
     West Virginia University-Tech scored five times in the bottom of the eighth inning to pull away for good and defeat the RedStorm, 10-3, in the first elimination game of the eight-team tourney at VA Memorial Stadium.
     The Golden Bears, seeded No. 6 in the double-elimination bracket, improved to 28-21 with the victory and will face third-seeded Shawnee State University in another elimination game on Saturday morning.
     Rio Grande, which was seeded seventh, finished its season at 20-31.
     The RedStorm took a 1-0 first inning lead on a run-scoring single by junior Likeiry Jimenez (Reading, PA), but Tech pushed across single runs in the second and fourth innings to grab a 2-1 advantage.
     Rio knotted the score at 2-all in the top of the fifth on another RBI hit by Jimenez, but the Bears countered with two runs in the home half of the inning and another run in the sixth to open up a 5-2 cushion.
     The RedStorm closed the gap to 5-3 in the eighth thanks to a run-scoring groundout by senior Darius Jordan (Minford, OH), but Tech put things away once and for all in the bottom of the eighth.
     Francesco Calderon opened the inning with a double to center and was replaced by pinch-runner Tyler Mackey, who moved to third thanks to a throwing error on Logan Spurlock's fielder's choice grounder to shortstop.
     William Gray followed with a single to score Mackey, Logan Stump doubled home both Gray and Spurlock and Tyler Wilkinson homered to right to make it 10-3.
     Rio Grande did put two runners on with one out in the ninth, but any kind of miracle comeback was snuffed out when Jimenez hit into a game-ending double-play.
     Calderon finished 3-for-4 with a homer and a double for the Golden Bears, while Stump had two hits and three RBI, Wilkinson drove in three runs and Gray added two hits of his own.
     Noah Cummings also homered and drove in two runs in the win.
     Robert Kelley started and got the win for WVU-Tech, allowing nine hits and two runs over seven innings. He also walked one and fanned nine.
     Junior Justin Anaya (Brownsville, TX) started and lost for Rio Grande, surrendering seven hits and five runs - four earned - over 5-1/3 innings.
     In addition to Jimenez, junior Beiker Fuentes (Crystal Lake, IL), senior Angel Cruz (Santo Domingo, D.R.) and junior Waskar Martinez (Santiago, D.R.) had two hits each for the RedStorm. Both of the hits by Cruz and one by Martinez went for doubles, while junior Alex Scoular (Whitby, Ontario, Canada) also had a double.