Cleburne, Texas – Trinity's top-seeded baseball team opened up the 2021 Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference Tournament with a 9-7 win over #4 seed Centenary College on Friday afternoon.

The Tigers, ranked second in the latest Division III national poll, were able to overcome an early deficit behind a slew of home runs to take the lead for good.

MJ Metz (San Diego, Calif. / Canyon Crest) hit the last of those home runs and went 1-2 with two runs scored and three RBI to lead the offense. Alex Bihn (Houston, Texas / Westside) got the win in relief to improve to 1-1 this season, while Matthew Thomas (Scottsdale, Ariz. / Horizon) shut down the Gents in the ninth to capture his team-leading sixth save of the year.

Trinity advances to face the winner of #2 seed Texas Lutheran University and #3 seed Southwestern University tomorrow at 12:00 p.m. Those two teams face off this evening. All tournament games are being hosted by The Depot at Cleburne Station.

The Rundown

Centenary loaded the bases with the first three batters of the game, but the Tigers were able to escape without any damage thanks to a double play. The Gents continued to get runners on, and back-to-back doubles in the second inning produced a pair of runs. Centenary got another run in the third to take a 3-0 lead and looked to be in control of the game.

Trinity's offense picked up its first hit of the game to lead off the bottom half of the third, then a walk and a hit batter eventually loaded the bases with two outs. That's when Brian Schaub (Hatfield, Pa. / La Salle College HS) launched a grand slam over the wall in left field to put the Tigers on top 4-3.

Tyler Pettit (Round Rock, Texas / Round Rock) led off the fourth with a solo shot of his own to add to the lead, then Rafe Chaumette (Sugar Land, Texas / Clements) matched that feat to start the fifth to make it a 6-3 ball game.

Meanwhile, after hitting the first batter he faced, Bihn retired nine straight hitters to cool off the Centenary bats. After a pair of two-out hits in the sixth broke that up, Bihn kept the lead at three runs with a strikeout to end the inning.

The long ball was in play for Trinity once again in the bottom of the sixth, but this time it was Metz with a three-run shot to extend the lead to 9-3.

The Gents got the bats going even more in the seventh, picking up four runs on three hits and taking advantage of a Trinity error to make it a 9-7 game heading into the seventh-inning stretch. Trinity's bats were the ones that went cold in the latter innings, as the Tigers didn't have another base runner after the Metz homer.

Centenary stranded a runner in the eighth to keep it a 9-7 game, then a leadoff double in the ninth prompted the Tigers to bring in Thomas to close the game. He needed just 10 pitches to get three outs and lift Trinity to the win.

Numbers to Note

Michael Goodrich (Gilbert, Ariz. / Basha) was the only Trinity player with more than one hit, going 2-4 with two runs scored in the game.

Chaumette's home run was the 250th hit of his career, breaking a tie with Tiger All-American Jeremy Wolf (Scottsdale, Ariz. / Chaparral) for fifth all-time.

Schaub's grand slam was his team-leading 11th home run this year, which is tied for the seventh-most in Trinity single season history.

The homer for Chaumette was his third this season and the 15th of his career, while Metz hit his third home run of the season.

Bihn picked up the win in just his second career appearance, allowing one earned run (three runs total) on four hits over 3.2 innings of work.

Up Next

The Tigers will play at 12:00 p.m. on Saturday, May 8, against the winner of this evening's Texas Lutheran/Southwestern matchup. The winner of tomorrow's game will advance to the SCAC Championship game on Sunday.