GREENVILLE, S.C. In his first start since May 2, Asher Wojciechowski pitched a complete game and became the first Bulldog pitcher to record 15 strikeouts in a game in over a decade, leading The Citadel to a 5-1 lead over 22nd-ranked and top-seeded Elon in front of 1,235 at Fluor Field Saturday morning.
The Citadel (37-21) will face top-seeded Elon (39-15) at 5 p.m. Saturday in a true semifinal game for the right to play in the SoCon Tournament Championship game. The early morning Saturday win marks Elon's first loss in the 2009 tournament, which features a double-elimination format. In addition to holding the league's top seed, the Phoenix are ranked 22nd nationally.
“We're winning games like we do-we pitch and play defense and get timely hits, but Elon is still the class of this league,” said The Citadel head coach Fred Jordan. “They only lost four games in the course of the regular season. We'll just come out and play as hard as we can. We're still sitting here-survive and advance, that's all we can do.”
Wojciechowski (3-3) set a career-high strikeouts in the first complete game of his career, fanning 15 while holding Elon to one run on five hits and walking two. The only run Wojciechowski allowed came on back-to-back balk calls, a small blip on an otherwise impressive performance as the sophomore struck out every batter Elon sent to the plate.
“Obviously Asher Wojciechowski was outstanding-one of the better performances he's had in his career,” said Jordan. “Craig Clark and Andy Clawson deserve all the credit for getting that oblique strain straightened out. He threw the ball extremely well in our workouts prior to this and it was just a great day for him.”
“Asher Wojciechowski is pretty good, and he was great tonight,” remarked Elon head coach Mike Kennedy. “We tried to work some counts and do some things. He got his pitch count up, but they left him out there. He threw 100 sliders and about 99 of them were pretty good. I don't think we did anything wrong-he was really good. I haven't seen a performance like that since I've been at Elon. That's pretty impressive coming out of that layoff.”
Nick Orvin led the Bulldog offense with a 4-for-5 day with a run scored and an RBI as The Citadel (37-21) scored five runs on 10 hits and did not commit an error in a game for the first time in this year's Southern Conference Tournament. David Greene added a 2-for-4 performance with two RBI and a run scored.
Tom Porter (2-4) took the loss after allowing four runs three earned on seven hits while striking out five. J.D. Reichenbach allowed the final Bulldog run on two hits as he walked one in 0.1 innings on the mound.
Orvin led off the game with a double down the left field line and then went to third as Bryan Altman flied out to right field. Sonny Meade singled up the middle to send Orvin across the plate for the early 1-0 lead.
Facing a 1-0 count as he led off the second inning, David Greene hit a solo home run that barely cleared the top of the left field fence, hitting the wall and bouncing out of play for his fourth home run of the season.
The Citadel extended its lead in the fifth when Sid Fallaw led off with a single through the left side and went to second two batters later when Orvin singled to left. Fallaw would move to third and then score on a pair of wild pitches by Porter, whose three wild pitches in the game were his first three of the season.
The Bulldogs went up 4-0 in the seventh as Matt Simonelli reached base on a throwing error by Elon's Chase Austin to lead off the inning. Simonelli would successfully steal second and a throwing error by Phoenix catcher Dallas Tarleston allowed Simonelli to reach third. Greene then singled to right field to drive Simonelli in.
Elon's lone run of the game came in the bottom of the seventh as left fielder Pat Irvine doubled to left before Wojciechowski's two balks allowed him to score.
Sonny Meade drew a walk to lead off the top of the eighth and went to third as Richard Jones followed with a single through the right side. After Chris McGuiness hit a shallow fly ball to left field, Greene singled to right to drive in Meade for the Bulldogs' fifth run of the game.
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