May 31, 2014

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Weigel Goes the Distance as Bucknell Eliminates Liberty

By Phil Stanton

CollegeBaseballInsider.com Co-Founder

phil@collegebaseballinsider.com @RoadToOmaha

(photo by Marc Hagemeier)

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. - Senior left-hander Dan Weigel (right) wanted to finish what he started.

After allowing a pair of runs in the top of the first, Weigel put up eight goose eggs on the scoreboard as fourth-seeded Bucknell defeated No. 3 Liberty 5-2 Saturday afternoon in an elimination game of the Charlottesville Regional at Davenport Field.

The Bison (31-20-1) will face the loser of Saturday evening's Virginia-Arkansas contest in an elimination game on Sunday at 1 p.m. The Flames finish their season at 41-18.

Weigel (8-5) threw 130 pitches and surrendered four hits with no walks and six strikeouts.

"The story of the game was certainly Dan Weigel on the mound," Bucknell coach Scott Heather said. "I told the guys confidence and belief in yourself is an amazing thing and you could see that from early on. He believed in himself. I knew he was going to give us a chance to win."

The Flames did have the early lead. Ashton Perritt hit a high popup to shallow right-center that was lost in the sun and fell for a double. Perritt was bunted to third and came home on a sac fly to center by Ryan Seiz, avoiding the tag to make it 1-0. Alex Close crushed a homer to left, his ninth of the season, to give Liberty a 2-0 advantage.

The Bison answered with three in the bottom of the frame. Two walks and an error loaded the bases with one away. Sam Clark drew a bases-loaded walk, and Rob Krentzman delivered a two-run single as Bucknell took a 3-2 lead.

Bucknell added to its lead in the second as Jon Mayer laced a two-run double to left to make it a 5-2 contest.

"When you give up runs and get your team in an early hole, it was good to see the team bounce back," Weigel said. "They got three for me, and they gave me a lead to work with after the first inning. In the second inning they tacked on two more. I was able to pitch with a lead and be more aggressive. I was able to pound the zone."

Liberty had just two hits following the first, a one-out single by Perritt in the third and a leadoff base hit by Becker Sankey in the seventh. Both were stranded at second.

"He [Weigel] battled through some adversity early," Heather said. "But he was pretty tough after that. He kept them off balance and he got all three of his pitches over the plate for strikes. He pitched to both sides. He certainly benefited from the big ballpark in getting a lot of fly ball outs, easy outs for us in a lot of instances.”

Normally a groundball pitcher, Weigel induced 15 fly-ball outs from the Flames in spacious Davenport.

"We're disappointed in how the Regional went," Liberty coach Jim Toman said. "I'm really proud of the guys getting us to a Regional. We didn't play as well as we wanted to down the stretch. I don't know exactly why that was. We ran out of gas at the end. We had the best regular season in the history of Liberty. I'm proud of these guys for that and winning the Big South Conference."

Weigel was able to record his fourth complete game of the season and the eighth of his career.

"We started to look at the bullpen in about the sixth inning," Heather said. "I was watching the velocity closely for Dan. He's a workhorse. He's thrown a lot of pitches for us over the years. He said when he came off in the eighth that he was finishing it, and when a senior tells you that you're going to go with it."

Weigel plunked the leadoff hitter in the top of the ninth, but three harmless fly balls finished it.

"When you have a chance to throw a complete game in a Regional," Weigel said, "I haven't been here before and it was possibly my last college start. Throwing a complete game is pretty cool."