Three-Run Ninth Pushes Huskies Past Seattle U, 7-4

Tuesday, April 25

Bellevue, Wash.

5:00 PM

University of Washington

22-16

Seattle

13-25-1

Washington

Seattle U

April 25, 2017 | Baseball

Box Score Box: UW 7, Seattle U 4

By: Brian Tom

BELLEVUE, Wash. – Washington (22-16) scored three runs in the top of the ninth inning of a tie game after averting near-disaster in the bottom of the eighth inning to beat Seattle U, 7-4, Tuesday night at Bannerwood Ballpark in Bellevue.

In the Huskies' ninth, AJ Graffanino drew a walk from Zach Wolf (0-7) and Jack Meggs singled him to third setting the stage for MJ Hubbs, who delivered a go-ahead RBI single that broke a 4-4 tie. Joey Morgan followed with a sacrifice fly and John Naff capped the inning with a RBI single.

Greg Minier (1-1), who entered the game in the eighth, averted jams in both his innings of work to pick up the win for the Huskies.

In the bottom of the eighth, Seattle U (13-25-1) loaded the bases with no outs, but Minier stepped up huge to keep the game deadlocked at 4-4. He got Sean Sutton to hit into a force play at the plate before striking the next two batters to end the inning.

"Greg went above and beyond what any reasonable person can expect," Husky Coach Lindsay Meggs said. "Normally guys give up at least one run in that situation, but you know what, he's kind of evolving into our closer and he's a guy that's not afraid. He's been through it, so maybe we found something that is going to help us down the stretch."

Seattle U kept up the pressure and brought the tying run to the plate in the ninth, but Minier got a strike out and fly out to hammer down the win for the Huskies.

Before all the late-inning excitement, the Huskies jumped out to a 3-0 lead. The Huskies executed fundamental baseball to a tee in the second inning to score three times and build an early cushion. After Willie MacIver walked and Naff singled to start the inning, Nick Kahle laid down a perfect sacrifice bunt to get both runners in scoring position. Levi Jordan made the strategy pay dividends with a single into center field that chased both runners home.

With two outs, Graffanino drove Jordan home with a double into right field that made the score 3-0.

Seattle U answered back in its half of the second when Sutton dumped a bloop single into left field that plated Curtis Perrin and made the score 3-1.

The score remained 3-1 until the sixth inning when Jordan singled home Naff for his career-high tying third RBI of the game.

The Redhawks started chipping away in their half of the sixth with a run to draw back to within two. With two outs, Dalton Hurd doubled to score Austin Lively, who started the inning with an infield single.

An inning later the Redhawks evened the score at 4-4 on another two-out hit, this time a two-run homer by Lively off the Huskies' third pitcher of the game, Leo Nierenberg.

Alex Hardy made his first career start on the hill and tossed three solid innings, allowing one run on two hits.

The Huskies outhit Seattle U, 11-9, with Hubbs, Naff and Jordan each picking up a pair of hits. Hubbs extended his streak of reaching base safely to 31-straight games and extended his career-high hit streak to 13 games.

The Huskies return to Pac-12 play this weekend and will host California for a three-game series starting Friday and running through Sunday at Husky Ballpark.