Series Recap:
Thursday, May 19 (Game 1): Liberty 8, High Point 11
Thursday, May 19 (Game 2): Liberty 11, High Point 10
Friday, May 20: Liberty 16, High Point 3
Liberty and High Point combined to score 59 runs as the Flames take two of three from the Panthers down in High Point, NC. Liberty (28-27, 12-12 BSC) finishes the season just one game above .500 avoiding a losing season for the first time in more than a decade. Both the Flames and the Panthers await the finish of the rest of the Big South games this weekend to find out their seed for the conference tournament.
Heading into the Big South Tournament that will start on Tuesday in Lexington, South Carolina, the Flames have won 6 of 7 since the shellacking at the hands of top seeded Coastal Carolina a couple weekends ago. Liberty did all they could to get things going over the last two weeks of the season winning both of their final conference series’.
The Liberty pitching staff walked 7 batters in the first two games against High Point, and 8 in the final. Those are just too many free base runners to be successful in the tournament. While the offense seems to be clicking right now, offense alone will not carry the Flames through the conference tournament.
Player of the series: Eric Grabowski
Liberty junior Eric Grabowski did everything against the Panthers. Grabowski went 5 for 13 at the plate with 4 RBI’s and 6 runs scored, played fantastic defense at third base in each game, and earned his first save of the year pitching 2.2 scoreless innings with 5 strikeouts to close out the final game of the series.
Stat of the series: Road Series Wins
As shocking as this stat may be, this was Liberty’s first and only road conference series win of the year. What’s even worse is that the Flames are 4-12 on the road in conference for the year.
Tournament Time:
We know that the Flames will play on Tuesday, May 24 down in Lexington, South Carolina, but we do not know what time. With just a few regular season conference games still left to be played this weekend, seeds 2-7 are still to be determined. We can also say with certainty that top seed Coastal Carolina will play eight seed Radford at 4:30pm on Tuesday.
We will have a Big South Conference Tournament Preview coming up in the next couple days here at Flames Nation.
