MURFREESBORO, Tenn.- The University of Tennessee at Martin baseball bounced back in Day 2 of the MTSU Round-Robin tournament with its second shutout of the season, this time coming against Old Dominion, 6-0.
Jalen Fithian continued to a have a big weekend, going 4-for-5 with two runs scored and a stolen base. Jonah Katsaboulas (2-4, two RBI, run scored) and Frank Micallef (2-3, walk, RBI) joined Fithian in the multi-hit category for the Skyhawks, who improved to 4-5 on the season. Garner Anderson (run scored, walk, stolen base), JT Popick (RBI), Brody Capps (walk) and TJ Grines (RBI, stolen base) also helped UT Martin pull away late.
Drake Bayles (2-0) enjoyed his second combined shutout behind seven innings of four-hit ball and five strikeouts. Mason Shropshire kept things clean the rest of the way, going two innings while allowing no hits, no walks and striking out one.
A Hazlehurst, Miss. native, Bayles tallied three strikeouts in a row in the first two frames. He only allowed one Monarch baserunner to second base in the second through fourth innings, helping his own cause by picking off that runner as he coasted through the lineup.
Bayles did not allow a hit in the fifth and successfully pitched around a pair of baserunners in the sixth and seventh to keep the game scoreless.
The UT Martin offense repaid their starting arm with a five-run eighth inning as the first five Skyhawk hitters reached base safely. With the bases juiced, Capps drew a walk to drive in the game’s first run and give the Skyhawks a lead they wouldn’t relinquish. Katsaboulas ripped a two-run single up the middle before Popick and Micallef produced back-to-back RBI’s to make the score 5-0 after the top of the eighth.
Shropshire entered for the eighth and after a runner reached first on an error, he kept Old Dominion off the scoreboard with a strikeout and a 6-4-3 double play. The Skyhawks added an insurance run in the top of the ninth after Fithian led off with a single, stole second, advanced to third on an Anderson flyout and crossed the plate on an RBI groundout off the bat of Grines.
Shropshire shut down Old Dominion in the ninth, retiring the Monarchs in order to put UT Martin in the win column.
The Skyhawks will now end the MTSU Round-Robin tomorrow against St. Bonaventure as first pitch is set for 4 p.m. at Reese Smith Jr. Field.