Will Carlton batted in six runs as Covenant College beat visiting Averett 14-7 and 5-2 on Saturday to claim the USA South baseball regular-season championship.
Covenant (26-13, 19-8) had 18 hits in game one, when Carlton went 2-for-3 with four RBIs and K.C. Simons, Will Cleland and Scott Gillespie had three hits each. Cleland, David Lockwood and Forrest Hunter each had two RBIs.
Alhanon Miller scattered eight hits in pitching the 5-2 win, when the Scots broke a 2-2 tie with two runs in the sixth inning on a Carlton sacrifice fly and a Z Arima single. Arima was 2-for-4.
* Lee 3-2, Christian Brothers 2-1: At Cleveland, the host Flames pulled out two one-run Gulf South Conference wins with Jeremy Bales (4-0) getting the first win as the middle man of three pitchers and Jeremy Stawychny firing a three-hitter with six strikeouts and no earned run. The teams play a third game today.
Siosi Poti was 2-for-4 with a home run, Zacary Hawkins was 3-for-4 with an RBI and Andres Nelo was 1-for-2 with the deciding RBI walk in the first game for the Flames (29-17, 14-12). Josh Hopkins hit a two-run homer for the Memphis team (11-34, 3-26). In game two, Poti was 2-for-2 and scored on a first-inning single by Hawkins, who also doubled, and Nathan Wierzgac was 2-for-2 after a 2-for-4 first game.
* Volunteer State 4, Chattanooga State 3: At Chattanooga State, the visitors forced a deciding game today in the TCCAA/NJCAA Region VII tournament play-in series with their one-run win over the Tigers (24-14). Vol State (21-20) took a 3-0 lead and later broke a 3-3 tie with a sacrifice fly. Chattanooga State loaded the bases in the eighth but didn't score.
* Motlow 7, Cleveland State 6: At Tullahoma, the Bucks ended the Cougars' season with a four-run ninth inning in the second game of their tournament play-in series, after Cleveland State took a 6-3 lead in the top of the inning on Dalton Rogers' two-out three-run homer.
Logan Conley's sacrifice fly made it 6-4, and Luke Toms, who earlier homered, hit a two-out double to get Motlow within a run. Then after two hit batters loaded the bases, Hayden Pewitt singled in the tying and winning runs.
Toms was 3-for-4 and Ben Holland was 2-for-3 with a homer for Motlow (35-19). Rogers was 2-for-4 with four RBIs, Wright Hackett also was 2-for-4 and Keith Buckhault had two RBIs for the Cougars (24-21), and Zack Janes scored twice.
* Bryan 4-22, Virginia Intermont 2-8: At Dayton, the host Lions won the Appalachian Athletic Conference weekend series after losing 14-8 on Friday. Grant Zawadzki was 3-for-4 with three RBIs, Justin Morhardt was 3-for-5 with a homer and Kelvin McMiller also homered for Bryan in that game, when Seth Davis had three RBIs and he and Ryan Hankins homered for Intermont while Hankins, Fabian Placencia, Trey Gilreath and Taylor Reeves each was 3-for-5.
McMiller went 3-for-3 and homered again in Saturday's first game, when Chad Burrows pitched a two-hitter. Then the Lions (29-24, 14-13) erupted, as Tyler Latham was 3-for-5 with a homer and six RBIs, Joey Underwood was 4-for-4 with three runs and two RBIs, Zawadzki was 3-for-3 with five runs and two RBIs and Morhardt had three RBIs in the finale. Roberts was 2-for-3 with three runs and two RBIs.