Jackson, Miss. – The Centenary baseball team lost for the first this season as the Gents fell, 5-0, to the Belhaven Blazers on Saturday night at Smith-Wills Stadium in game three of the Belhaven University Tournament.
The Gents (2-1) lost for just the fifth time in their last 16 games while the Blazers (4-1) won for the second time on Saturday after defeating the Edgewood College Eagles by a score of 22-5 in the first game of the day.
Centenary, playing its first road game of the young season, was uncharacteristically cold on offense on Saturday as the Gents managed just three hits and were shut out for the first time since March 30, 2019 at Trinity. The Gents won a pair of non-conference home games last week over Louisiana College and ETBU, scoring 13 runs and collecting 25 hits but managed just three singles on Saturday.
Centenary senior left-hander Connor Lee (Sugarland, Texas) suffered his first loss of the season to fall to 1-1. He started and went seven innings allowing four runs, all earned, on seven hits with a walk and a strikeout. Lee, the reigning SCAC Baseball Pitcher of the Week, threw 91 pitches with 65 going for strikes. Lee pitched in both of the Gents' games last week and in seven innings pitched he did not allow an earned run with five strikeouts and no walks. Senior Connor Cudd (Lake Charles, La.) came on in relief of Lee and pitched an inning, allowing an earned run on one hit with a strikeout.
Belhaven sophomore Brett Sanchez went the distance on the mound on Saturday for the Blazers, tossing the complete-game shutout and allowing just three hits with no walks and eight strikeouts. He threw 103 pitches, 74 of which were strikes, to improve to 2-0 on the season.
The Blazers took a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the fifth inning on a RBI single by designated hitter Kyle McLaughlin and a sacrifice fly by catcher Hunter White. Belhaven then added single runs in the sixth, seventh, and eighth innings to put the game away. The Blazers produced eight hits, but just one extra-base hit, and overcame three errors and left six left on base. The Gents struck out eight times and left five on base. McLaughlin and White each had two hits in Saturday's game, combining to go 4-6 at the plate with three RBI and a run scored. Third baseman Nathan Herron went 2-4 with an RBI and a run scored.
Senior right fielder Cody Crowder (Shepherd, Texas) had two of the Gents' three hits on Saturday with senior second baseman Tyler Erickson (Houston, Texas) having the other. Crowder had his first multi-hit game of the season and now has 191 career hits, fourth-most in the division III era (2012-present) and is just three away from the third-place record of 194. Crowder had eight multi-hit performances last season, collecting at least two hits in all but five games. He did so in five of Centenary's final six games of the season as he went 11-23 (.478 batting average) with eight RBI and four runs scored.
Centenary will play a pair of games on Sunday, as the Gents face Edgewood at 11 a.m. and the Huntingdon College Hawks at 3 p.m. The Gents defeated Edgewood twice last season in Jackson in the Millsaps Invitational.
The full schedule for Sunday is below:
Sunday, Feb. 21:
11 a.m. Centenary vs. Edgewood
3 p.m. Huntingdon vs. Centenary
7 p.m. Huntingdon vs. Belhaven
Live stats and video will be available for Centenary's three games this weekend at the following link: https://blazers.belhaven.edu.
Live stats and live video are available for all Gents' home games.
A link to the Gents' complete 2021 schedule can be found here: https://www.gocentenary.com/sports/bsb/2020-21/schedule
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