Jim Mashek

HILLTOPPERS TURN TO GAVIN PERRY FOR GAME TWO ON SATURDAY; WKU REMAINS TIED FOR SIXTH IN C-USA STANDINGS

The nine o’clock hour was approaching when Western Kentucky University’s Daniel Stewart stepped up to the plate.

The Hilltoppers’ baseball squad had trailed tradition-rich Dallas Baptist University for much of the night, but they scratched out a single run in the bottom of the seventh inning.

That tied things up at 4.

Former BGHS standout Dawson Hall, a senior right-hander in his final season with the Tops, kept Western Kentucky withing striking distance in the middle innings. WKU’s Sam Frizzi needed just one pitch to battle out of an eighth-inning jam, and in the ninth, the Hilltoppers were in fine hands with bullpen mainstay Mick Uebelhor, a junior right-hander from Huntingbird, Indiana.

Then came the bottom of the ninth.

Fourth-year WKU head coach Marc Rardin doesn’t ALWAYS play the percentages when his team is playing at home. Sometimes, he’ll be more aggressive. And this time, the Tops may have rewarded him with their most memorable victory of the season.

Daniel Stewart made that happen on Friday night in Game One of WKU’s final home series in Conference USA play.

The 6-foot-4, 210-pound senior outfielder/DH from Hazel Green, Alabama, crushed Russ Smith’s first pitch for a decisive three-run home run, a shot that sailed over the fence in left-center field, to lift the Hilltoppers to a dramatic, walk-off 7-4 victory over tradition-rich Dallas Baptist, in its final season as a baseball-only member of Conference USA.

“I knew it was going out. My teammates let me know it was going out,” Stewart said with a grin after being mobbed at home plate and meeting with Rardin and his coaching staff in the WKU dugout.

Western Kentucky improved to 27-23 overall and 12-13 in Conference USA play, while the Patriots dropped to 28-22 and 16-9, respectively. Game Two of the series is set for 4 p.m. Saturday at WKU’s Nick Denes FIeld.

“I try to teach them about toughness and resiliency,” Rardin said, “and the toughness was in them tonight.”

It’s been a season of challenges for Western Kentucky, which won last year’s C-USA Tournament, also in dramatic fashion. The Tops’ 6-5 victory over Jacksonville State, in 11 innings, in the championship game put WKU back in the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2009.

WKU first baseman Kyle Hayes, who leads the team with 10 home runs, was lost for the season with a leg injury in Wednesday’s 5-2 loss to traditional rival Eastern Kentucky University. Rardin was less than pleased with the Hilltoppers’ performance — “I didn’t like the way we went about our business,” he said — but the Tops returned to the practice field on Thursday and clearly were ready to play in a high-stakes game against Dallas Baptist.

Dallas Baptist is in a three-way tie, with Missouri State and soon-to-be leaving Louisiana Tech, in the C-USA standings. WKU and Kennesaw State, which will host the C-USA Tournament later this month, are tied for sixth place, three games behind DBU, Missouri State and Louisiana Tech.

Rardin will turn to senior right-hander Gavin Perry, his most consistent starter this season, in Game Two on Saturday against the Patriots. Perry has compiled a 6-1 record with a 4.09 ERA. Dallas Baptist coach Dan Heefner is expected to counter with senior right-hander Dan Boberg (0-1, 7.11 ERA). The series concludes on Sunday at 1 p.m.

The Hilltoppers gave the home crowd a thrill on Friday night, setting the tone for the series with Daniel Stewart’s heroics in the bottom of the ninth.

“Momentum is everything in baseball,” Stewart said when it was over.

WKU right-hander Dawson Hall got the start in Sunday’s 9-8 victory over MTSU in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, but he lasted only an inning in that game. On Friday, the 6-foot-1 senior was dialed in, allowing just one hit in 4 1/3 innings of work. He allowed four walks and one hit batter, but as WKU coach Marc Rardin said, there’s a method to that kind of madness.

“It started with Dawson Hall putting up zeroes,” Rardin said. “He had some ‘controlled wildness,’ and they never were real comfortable up there. His stuff was really good.”

WKU’s Gage Olson, the Hilltoppers’ starting pitcher, gave up a three-run home run to Dallas Baptist’s Chayton Krauss in the top of the third. Dylan Schlaegel added an RBI single — a squibber to shallow right field that beat the WKU infield shift — before Olson picked him off, at first base, to retire the side.

The Hilltoppers had grabbed a 2-0 lead in the bottom of the second inning. Daniel Stewart and Cael Frost had back-to-back doubles, against DBU starter LIam Watt, and WKU third baseman J.P. Acosta would chase Frost home with an RBI ground ball, a high hopper to the shortstop, to give the Tops an early 2-0 lead. In the fifth, WKU catcher Camden Ross made it 4-3 with an RBI double off the fence in left-center field.

WKU’s Dawson Hall got out of one jam when Schlaegel was thrown out at third base by Hilltoppers center fielder Parker Coley in the sixth. WKU reliever Sam Frizzi inherited a two-out, bases-loaded situation in the top of the eighth, and he needed just one pitch to retire the side on Ryan Martin’s routine ground ball to third.

Uebelhor retired the side, in order, striking out the final two batters he faced in the top of the ninth.

That brought up the top of the WKU batting order, in the bottom half, and sophomore shortstop Reid Howard got things going by lining a 2-2 pitch from DBU’s Russ Smith into center field for a leadoff single.

Smith retired WKU’s Austin Haller and Camden Ross, Haller on a line drive that nearly resulted in a double play, before Hilltoppers first baseman Lane Arroyos drew a walk. That set the stage for Daniel Stewart, the senior DH who transferred to WKU from Tennessee Wesleyan University, an NAIA school in Athens, Tennessee.

Stewart said he’s been working with WKU assistant coach Tyler Herbst on his offensive approach, particularly in clutch situations.

“On the first pitch, he likes me to sit on the fastball,” Stewart said. “I just tried to trust my hands and hit it hard …”

And over the fence, as it turned out. It was Stewart’s seventh home run of the season.

“Our toughness will be tested in the second game,” WKU coach Marc Rardin said. “You’ve got to respect the game, and the teaching and communicating never stops.”

WKU will close regular-season play next week at the University of Delaware, C-USA’s last-place team with a 5-20 league record. The Conference USA Tournament will begin on May 20 in Kennesaw, Georgia.