On Saturday, March 5, the Saint Xavier men’s baseball team pulled off a massive upset over the Central Methodist University Eagles by a score of 7-6.
The Cougars found themselves down early, as the Eagles had a 4-2 lead after the first four innings of play. Both teams would continue to go back and forth until the Cougars found themselves down 6-5, heading to the bottom of the ninth inning. Outfielder, Drew Hunniford, would end up being the hero as he drove in the game-tying run with a double, and scored on a wild pitch to give the Cougars a walk off victory.
Hunniford had a big day at the plate going three for five with two RBIs and the game-winning run. The Cougars also got a solid contribution from third baseman, Jimmy Smyth, who contributed two runs and 1 run driven in as well. On the pitching side of things, Julian Vargas was able to get through seven innings of four-run ball and only two of those runs were earned.
This was a major victory for the Cougars, as the Eagles are currently the second ranked team in the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) Coaches’ Poll. The Eagles are also an out-of-conference opponent for the Cougars, thus the team had a limited amount of knowledge about their opponent going in. Despite these hurdles, the Cougars managed to keep it close throughout, and secured their first win against an NAIA Top 25 opponent in 2 years.
The Cougars have now wrapped up the first part of their season with an overall record of 16-3. All of their matchups thus far have been against non-conference opponents, so the rest of the season will mainly center around opponents from the Chicagoland Collegiate Athletic Conference (CCAC). Their first matchup against conference opponents will be this Wednesday (3/16/22) at 3:00 p.m. when they go on the road to face the Indiana University-South Bend Titans.
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