Liberty (23-26) gets a much needed and hopeful momentum swinging win, beating the Old Dominion Monarchs (29-19) in come from behind fashion 7 to 6. The win snaps Liberty’s 4 game losing streak, all of those losses coming at home and against top 25 teams.
The Flames were down 5-1 heading into the bottom of the 5th when they began to mount their come back. Liberty would score a run in the 5th, 6th, and 7th inning before taking a 7-6 lead on three runs in the 8th. Liberty’s Eric Grabowski would work himself a bases loaded walk in that 3 run bottom of the 8th to push what would be the winning run across the plate.
Liberty used 7 different pitchers in the game in a move that LU Coach Toman said was to keep his pitching staff fresh for this weekend’s important series against Radford. Starter Jordan Scott, who gave up the walk off homer in Liberty’s last meeting with ODU, got redemption against the Monarchs throwing two perfect innings and striking out 2.
It was good to see smiles on the faces of the Flames postgame as reasons to celebrate have been hard to come by in the second half of the season. Hopefully this midweek victory, over a good ODU team, will give the Flames the momentum they need to start to string some wins together and get themselves into the conference tournament.
Control issues continue to hurt the Flames:
Over their last 5 contests Liberty’s pitching staff has averaged 6.8 base on balls per game. That is far too many free passes to expect to beat good teams like UVA, Coastal Carolina, and even ODU regularly.
When Liberty pitchers got into trouble in the 3rd and 5th innings against ODU, the three walks they issued in each of those innings played a huge role in the struggle. If Liberty expects to get things going over their final seven remaining regular season games the Flames pitchers have to correct their control issues.
Up Next:
Radford comes to town for a pivotal three game series this weekend. A series win would lock up a spot in the conference tournament for the Flames.
