BELMONT, N.C.----Belmont Abbey freshman second baseman Alex Castellanos delivered a two-out, solo home run in the bottom of the ninth inning Wednesday afternoon, to lead the Belmont Abbey baseball team to its seventh straight victory, an 8-7 win, over Lander at Abbey Yard.
The Abbey improves its record to 25-12, while the Bearcats fall to 11-24.
After Lander's T.J. Guinan tied the game with a three-run homer with one out in the top of the eighth, neither team scored again until the bottom of the ninth. Andy Quick retired the first two batters of the inning on a strikeout and a popout, but on a 1-0 count, Castellanos ripped a blast well over the leftfield wall for the win. He finished the day 3-of-4.
Quick was charged with the loss after allowing the winning run on two hits. He fanned five and did not walk a batter in three innings of work. Trey Summerlin, the fourth Abbey pitcher of the day, improved his record to 3-1 after holding the Bearcats scorless in the ninth. He allowed one hit.
Lander grabbed an early 4-0 lead. In the first inning, Jonathan Myers doubled, advanced to third on a Gabe McCann's fly ball to deep center, then scored on Malcolm McLeod's sacrifice fly to right field. Lander plated three runs in the second inning when Guinan walked, advanced to second on Eric Barrett's single to center field and to third on a fielding error to load the bases. Jared Altus laced a two-run double to left center, then Hunter Ruoss scored on McCann's sacrifice fly to right field.
The Abbey would respond by scoring seven unanswered runs, starting with three in the fourth. Will Breslin led off with an infield single, and scored on the first of two Seth Waller doubles to trim the lead to 4-1. Castellanos followed with a single up the middle, scoring Waller to cut the lead in half at 4-2. After a flyout, a wild pitch and a walk, catcher Josh Cable trimmed the Lander lead to one with a lacing single to left that brought home Castellanos.
In the fifth, the Crusaders tied the game at 4-4. Breslin led off with a single, moved to third on a double down the leftfield line by Waller, and scored on a sacrifice fly by Castellanos.
The Crusaders took the lead for the first time in the sixth, scoring three runs with two outs. After the first two men were retired, leftfielder Tyler McKenzie ripped a single to center, and was lifted for pinch runner Derek Swilley. Rightfielder Alex Udwari followed with a double to the gap in right center, allowing Swilley to score easily from first as the Crusaders grabbed the lead for the first time at 5-4. Udwari then moved to third on a wild pitch, and he scored on Breslin's homer to make it 7-4.
The lead remained 7-4 until Guinan's contributions in the eighth.
For Lander, which had nine hits, Myers went 2-for-5 with one RBI and McLeod went 2-for-1 with one run scored and one RBI.
Belmont Abbey totaled 15 hits as Castellanos and Breslin both finished with three. Castellanos drove in three runs and scored twice.
