Small ball helps Tampa Spartans advance to NCAA Division II semifinals

University of Tampa pitcher B.J. Bailey celebrates a strikeout that ends the first inning of Monday's 2-1 victory over Point Loma in the second round of the NCAA Division II Baseball Championship tournament in Cary, North Carolina. ©BRETT FRIEDLANDERCARY, N.C. —Bunting has become a lost art in baseball these days. But for all the glory that comes with hitting home runs, it’s still the little things that win big games.

>And they did for the University of Tampa Monday at the NCAA Division II Baseball Championship tournament.

>After giving up the tying run on a two-out error in the bottom of the eighth inning, UT played a little small ball to get the lead right back and beat Point Loma (California) 2-1 at the USA Baseball National Training complex.

>After Jack Martinez reached on a throwing error, Jordan Evans laid down a perfect sacrifice bunt, his first of the season. Brayden Woodburn followed with an RBI single that vaulted the two-time defending national champions into the semifinals of this year’s double-elimination tournament.

>UT, needing just one more win to return to the championship series for the third straight year, will have to wait to find out whether its opponent Wednesday will be Point Loma or Catawba (North Carolina).

“Those are the types of games you’re going to have to win to win a World Series,” UT coach Joe Urso said of the pitcher’s duel that saw the Spartans’ B.J. Bailey and Point Loma’s Devin Norton match zeroes for most of the cool North Carolina evening.

>“Overall, it was an amazing game. With the wind blowing in, you have to get those bunts down, and we did. That was the difference in the game.”

>Although both teams had multiple chances to break through, only one run managed to cross the plate in the first 7 ½ innings. For a while, it appeared as though Luke Fikar’s two-out single that scored Jake Books in the second might be enough to pull UT through thanks to Bailey’s dominance on the mound.

>The graduate left-hander was efficient in shutting down a potent Point Loma lineup that hits a combined .329 with 75 home runs, using an effective changeup to limit the Sea Lions to only four hits before running out of gas with two outs in the seventh.

>The plan worked out, as Fikar came in from second base to strike out Matt Bernath to leave the bases loaded. But the sidearming junior wasn’t able to escape a similar situation an inning later, when first baseman Walker Vanecek got distracted by a baserunner in front of him and misplayed a grounder, allowing the tying run to score.

It was a miscue that might have deflated a lot of teams. But not the Spartans (48-8).

>“After I came back in (the dugout), I was frustrated,” Fikar said. “But our guys, I could just feel the energy, and I had a really good feeling that they were going to come right back and answer.”

>They got a little help in their response in the form of a throwing error by Point Loma shortstop Bernath that allowed Martinez, the No. 9 hitter, to reach first.

>That brought up leadoff man Evans, who laid down a perfect sacrifice. Woodburn followed with a solid single up the middle, his third hit of the game, to bring Martinez sliding home with what proved to be the winning run.

>Fikar bounced back to set down Point Loma in order in the bottom of the ninth.

>“We pride ourselves in relaxing and staying on an even keel in those late innings when others are feeling the pressure,” Urso said. “I feel like our dugout knows in the seventh, eighth and ninth innings we’re going to get our jobs done.”