By David Almeda, Staff Writer
Whatever magic dust KSU’s baseball team has been using lately, it might want to share some with fellow students during finals week.
After watching a four run lead disappear late, the Owls (25-20, 11-9 A-Sun) won their 11th consecutive game in dramatic fashion on Sunday, with Chris McGowan providing a walk-off, two-run home run in the ninth to give KSU a 9-8 victory over East Tennessee State at Stillwell Stadium.
The Owls’ winning streak ranks as the longest in Division I college baseball.
“That was just crazy, some of the stuff going on,” head coach Mike Sansing said. “We were fortunate to come back after giving up five runs. You can’t say enough about our guys being resilient with two outs in the bottom of the ninth. We’ll take it.”
Down 8-7 in the final inning following a five run rally by ETSU, the Owls were one out away from defeat. Up to the challenge, KSU began its swift comeback. After Brennan Morgan drew a walk, McGowan crushed a home run over the right field fence to keep the streak alive.
“It’s just a crazy feeling,” McGowan said. “My first one ever. Just a big game and especially after two of our guys going down, heavy hearts. It was good; it’s a thrill,
that’s for sure.” Following the game, McGowan tweeted, “Craziest moment of my athletic career! Incredible moment! Love this team!”
KSU has now climbed to fourth in the Atlantic Sun Conference standings, just weeks after a 2-9 start that put them in second to last place.
The Buccaneers opened up scoring in the second inning with a two-run home run before KSU responded in the bottom half with a sacrifice fly from Cornell Nixon to score Brennan Morgan. After ETSU tacked on another in the fourth, Matt Bahnick launched his first Division I home run to make it a 3-2 game through four innings.
In the seventh, the Owls’ bats began heating up. After Kal Simmons led off the inning with a diving infield single, Max Pentecost and Bo Way both added two hits, with the latter scoring Simmons to tie the game at three. Following a great at-bat, Morgan added an RBI triple to score Pentecost and Way. After McGowan brought Morgan home with single, the Owls ended the seventh with a 6-3 lead.
After KSU scored again in the eighth, closer Justin McCalvin came in to secure the win, but a scary moment occurred early in the inning when Way and Justin Motley collided in the outfield while attempting to make a catch. ETSU’s Kevin Phillips rounded the bases on the play, closing the lead to 6-4.
“We’re still getting them evaluated,” Sansing said. “We’ll have to reevaluate them throughout today and tomorrow and just kind of see.”
When the game resumed following the resulting delay, the Buccaneers collected four more runs off the usually dominant McCalvin to take an 8-7 lead before KSU won the game in the bottom of the inning.
“We’ve just got to keep it going,” McGowan said. “We come out every day just looking to put runs on the board and play the game one inning at a time. We’re not trying to do anything more, anything less. We’re working to win each inning.”
KSU’s catcher Max Pentecost extended his conference- leading hit streak to 25 games with a 3-for-4 performance at the plate. The Owls will now look to extend their streak to 12 when they play host to Georgia Southern at Stillwell Stadium on Wednesday.
