After crumbling when adversity hit during its late-season slide, the Tulane baseball team found a way to overcome a whole bunch more in a must-win game on Saturday night.<\/p>\n
Pitching with the tying run on third base because of two infield errors, Trey Cehajic struck out South Florida\u2019s Ryan Pruitt to preserve a topsy-turvy 9-8 victory at Turchin Stadium as the Green Wave evened its last home series and set up a wildly important Sunday finale.<\/p>\n
Tulane (24-28, 9-14), which ended a five-game skid, moved into a three-way tie for last place in the American Conference with South Florida (30-19, 9-14) and Charlotte and is only a game behind seventh-place Wichita State in its quest to qualify for the eight-team league tournament. Another win Sunday potentially could move the Wave into the seventh-seed spot entering its regular-season ending series at Rice. A defeat would all but kill its chance to get to Clearwater, Florida, and the Bulls are in the same situation.<\/p>\n
Cehajic, who lost his role as a Friday night starter a few weeks ago, came up huge as an impromptu closer after normal closer Sam Larson pitched the Wave into the lead in the first 5 2\/3 innings.<\/p>\n
\u201cTrey just kept going to the zone,\u201d Tulane coach Jay Uhlman said. \u201cHe did his job, we don\u2019t make plays (behind him) and he just kept going for it. That part for me sang to my core that he was able to just go for it and do it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tulane appeared to take control of the game twice, scoring six straight runs to go up 6-2 after five innings and scoring three in the bottom of the eighth after South Florida tied it at 6. On both occasions, the lead disappeared or nearly went away.<\/p>\n
The second cushion proved to be just big enough. Nate Johnson scored the go-ahead run on a wild pitch with two outs, and Jason Wachs singled in two runs as the Wave took full advantage of a hit batter, two walks and two wild pitches from relievers Nolan Bernard (3-2) and Brisen Tweedy.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously it was a big spot,\u201d said Wachs, who his hitting a team-best .332. \u201cWe were only up by one at that point and I wanted to extend the lead. I was just looking for a fastball I could hit and got it and was able to execute.\u201d<\/p>\n
It proved to be the difference. After Jacob Moore gave up a leadoff infield single and went to a 3-0 count on the next batter in the ninth, Cehajic entered and promptly coaxed an easy grounder to second baseman Nate Johnson. Trying to start a double play quickly, Johnson let the ball go right through into the outfield–an egregious error that allowed the Bulls to pull within 9-7 and put runners at the corners with no outs.<\/p>\n
After a pop-out, Cehajic finally solved cleanup hitter Nathan Earley, who had followed a 5-for-6 performance on Friday by doubling three times in his first four at-bats. This time, he hit a weak grounder to Trent Liolios, who stepped on first for the second out but then fired the ball into left field trying to get the game-ending out, allowing Jack Lutz to advance to third base.<\/p>\n
Cehajic made sure there would be no second tie, blowing a fastball by Pruitt to earn his first save since beginning 2024 as the Wave\u2019s closer.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was a huge win,\u201d Cehajic said. \u201cWe know what the circumstances are. My mindset was a little easier just trying to go full steam ahead and not worry about trying to go as long as I can. It was a good thing that I\u2019d done it before.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tulane would not have been in position to win without Larson\u2019s gutty starting performance and a little help from South Florida\u2019s defense. Larson threw a season-high 86 pitches\u201428 more than in any other game\u2014while striking out seven. He gave up a pair of cheap runs in second and third but induced a key double-play grounder in the sixth when he was tiring before allowing a run-scoring double to Earley, the last batter he faced.<\/p>\n
The Wave led 6-3 when he left.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was tremendous,\u201d Uhlman said. \u201cThat\u2019s why we started him. That\u2019s a guy that everybody in this program, to a man, believes in. He\u2019s tough. He\u2019s competitive, and when you have a competitive guy on the mound, you kind of take his personality.\u201d<\/p>\n
James Agabedis doubled and scored in the third to pull Tulane within 2-1. A pair of walks to start the fourth led to Liolios\u2019 tying single and Agabedis\u2019 go-ahead single. Johnson capped a four-hit, three-run fifth with a two-RBI single that came after Bulls shortstop Jevin Relaford drew Earley off the bag at first base, botching what should have been a tailor-made, inning-ending double play that would have kept the deficit at 3-2.<\/p>\n
South Florida rallied once Larson was out, scoring two runs off Jake Toporek in the seventh and tying it in the eighth off Jacob Moore (1-1), who nevertheless produced huge strikeouts to finish the seventh and eighth.<\/p>\n
Unlike Friday, when Uhlman ripped the team\u2019s effort after an early 3-0 lead turned into a ugly 16-6 loss, Tulane made enough plays to win. Uhlman was visibly angry at physical and mental mistakes several times Saturday, but now with the Wave\u2019s desire.<\/p>\n
\u201cI meant every word that I said last night,\u201d he said. \u201cI hoped walking away from that if we have the kind of kids I believe we have, they will respond, and they did. They were competitive. They were opposite of what we were yesterday.\u201d<\/p>\n
They will need a similar effort, with hopefully better execution, on Sunday. Uhlman would not commit to a starting pitcher, but if anyone can come close to replicating Larson\u2019s performance, the Wave will be in good stead.<\/p>\n
He started eight times for Division III Denison last season and applied that experience on a night when Tulane needed it the most.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel good,\u201d he said. \u201cThe biggest thing was trying to come out of the game with a lead. I was just trusting myself, and now we have an opportunity to win a series tomorrow. I\u2019m excited about that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After crumbling when adversity hit during its late-season slide, the Tulane baseball team found a way to overcome…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":265443,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29,8434],"class_list":["post-265442","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-hardwall"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265442","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=265442"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265442\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/265443"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=265442"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=265442"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=265442"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}