Wilmington Baseball Advance to CACC Championship Game With 11-4 Win Vs Post

Wilmington University is headed to the CACC Championship game after beating Post University 11-4 on Friday.

Wilmington will face Felician in the two game Championship series to be the top dogs ( or Wildcats) in the CACC.

Funny enough, Felician was the team the Wildcats lost in the first game on Friday in winner’s bracket game.

Wilmington also has a six game losing streak against Felican as well.

Let’s get back to the game that put the Wildcats in the Championship and look at how that victory happened.

First all of the offense for Wilmington was on fire with 11 runs scored in the game and right fielder Nick Grant led the way with 3 RBIs and 3 runs in the game.

The first inning started with a bang for Wilmington with infielder Brooks Ryan putting Wilmington on the board first with a home run.

Then it was Post turn to answer and they did with first baseman Rosario Missiti doubling to left center scoring infielder Connor Kolich which tied the game at 1.

Post was not done scoring in the first inning with their catcher John Russo flying out to center field to score Kolich and put the team up 2-1 against the Wildcats.

The second inning was not so great for Wilmington as the team struck out three times ( Grant reached base on wild pitch while striking out) and only having one hit in the inning.

It was a different story for Post who added to the lead in the bottom half of the second inning. Post’s Kolich singled to center field to score center fielder Alex Wright to make the lead 3-1 over Wilmington.

It all changed in the third inning when the Wilmington bats finally woke up with Wilmington’s Grant tripling to right center which scored second baseman Max Carney and  first baseman Kendall Small. Grant’s triple tied the game at three a piece but the Wildcats were not done scoring in their half of the third.

The very next batter DH Nick Macey grounded out but that was enough to score Grant which gave Wilmington their first lead since the top of the first inning.

Wilmington’s starting pitcher Zach Rumford was starting to settling down with Post’s batters only mustering one hit in the inning and the third ended with Wilmington with a 4-3 lead.

In the fourth both team’s offense were not able to do anything but in the fifth, it was all Wilmington.

One of their first runs in the fifth inning came from center fielder Dakota Graham who singled up the right side to score Grant which made it 5-3 lead for Wilmington.

The next run is one of the hardest to get by Macey stealing home to put Wilmington up 6-3 in the fifth inning.

Then Rumford did his thing in the bottom of the fifth with a quick 1,2 and 3 inning with Post batters.

Rumford who earned the win for the game, went 6.1 innings, 9 hits,  4 ER,  2 BBs and 2 Ks against Post.

Zach Frederick came to relieve for Rumford and went 0.2 innings with no hits, no runs and no earned runs.

In the bottom of the seventh inning, Post scored with DH Mike Lisinicchia hitting a double down the right field line to score Missiti. Lisinicchia’s double would decrease Wilmington’s led 6-4. It would also be the last time Post would score in the game.

In the ninth inning, Wilmington added some insurance runs to their lead with Small hitting a single to left which scored Carney and shortstop Christian Adorno.  Small’s single put Wilmington lead now 8-4 over Post.

The Wildcats were done scoring yet, Grant tripled to right center scoring Small which made the score 9-4 Wilmington.

The party was not over yet, Wilmington still had some juice left in those bats which the next batter Graham hit a single up the middle of the field scoring Grant. Graham’s single had Wilmington up 10-4.

The last Wilmington run of the game came from third baseman Brett Nowell who singled up the middle to score Graham to make Wilmington’s led 11-4.

Then it was up to closer Justin Mears to end this game for good and he did just that by having quick 1,2 and 3 inning with Post batters.

Mears ended the game with going 2 innings, 1 BB & 1 K against Post.

Wilmington looks to take this momentum from the Post game to the two game CACC Championship against Felician.

First pitch of the CACC Championship starts at 12:00 PM ET.