Birmingham-Southern Eliminates Radford, 2-1
Big South Championship

ROCK HILL, S.C.--Wes Letson struck out career-high 12 hitters in a complete-game effort to lead top-seeded Birmingham-Southern to a 2-1 victory over Radford Thursday afternoon in Game 4 of the 2004 Big South Conference Baseball Championship at The Winthrop Ballpark (Box Score)

The loss ended third-seeded Radford's best season since 2000. The Highlanders dropped to 23-30 and were eliminated from the tournament. RU posted its best League record, 14-10, since the 1995 season. Radford has not won a tournament game since the 1993 championship when RU lost the title game to Liberty.

The Panthers won their second 2-1 contest in as many days and improved to 44-14.

Letson (12-2) moved into a tie for third place on BSC’s single-season victories list with the win, and allowed just a first-inning home run to RU’s Jesse Ross before blanking the Highlanders the rest of the way. He walked just one hitter in out-dueling Radford’s Tom Graham (2-3), who was saddled with the loss despite yielding only a pair of unearned runs in the second inning.

The Highlanders outhit BSC by an 8-5 count, and scored in their first inning for the second-consecutive game on Ross’ first home run of the year. But the Panthers came back with a pair of unearned runs in the second that held up for the duration of the game. Connor Robertson reached on a dropped fly ball by Ross in center field and moved to second and scored on a double by Mac Godwin. Following a groundout, Godwin scored on a single through the infield by Pat Mizerany.

Letson cruised from there and finished strong, retiring the final seven batters he faced to send the Panthers into a 3:00 pm game Friday against the winner of Thursday evening’s Winthrop/Coastal Carolina contest.

POST GAME QUOTES

BIRMINGHAM-SOUTHERN HEAD COACH BRIAN SHOOP

“Wes is a stallion. He was really, really good today. The only regret is that he can’t pitch tomorrow. He’s been a great pitcher in our league this year. He’s now 8-0 against the League teams. That’s why we nominated him for the MVP of our League. He’s had a special year. Pitching is the key to everything in baseball. We’ve been fortunate to have two great efforts by our staff.”

BIRMINGHAM-SOUTHERN PITCHER WES LETSON

“I’ve pitched well here twice this year. I guess it’s just one of those things. It doesn’t feel any different than any other place I’ve pitched at this year. My curveball worked really well today. They chased a lot down in the zone, so I kept it down there. I also thought my fastball location worked really well.”

RADFORD HEAD COACH LEW KENT

“Letson threw a lot of his off speed stuff for strikes, especially his change-up. He knew about his curve, but we didn’t talk much about his change-up.”

“[The] biggest play of the game was when [Shaun] House was on first with no outs. We had a base hit through the right side, but we couldn’t get runners on first and third with only one out.”

“Graham has pitched really well, especially the last three or four weeks. He throws pitches for strikes. He’s a very good college pitcher.”