The University of Alabama at Birmingham Athletics
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Houston
Keedy's Walk-Off Blast Carries Blazers To Victory
5/23/2008 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
May 23, 2008
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NEW ORLEANS, La. - First baseman Ryan Keedy hit a walk-off home run off the light pole in left-center field in the bottom of the ninth to lift the UAB Blazers to a 5-4 victory over Houston in the 2008 Entergy Conference USA Championship at Greer Field at Turchin Stadium Friday afternoon. UAB will now play the winner of Friday night's game between Houston and East Carolina on Saturday. The winner will have to beat the Blazers twice to advance to the championship game.
"It was a changeup and I was looking fastball because they started me off with one and I figured he'd try and come back with a fastball, but I kept my hands back and drove through it and didn't try to do too much with it," Keedy said of his ninth inning homer.
Keedy, who suffered a hamstring injury in Wednesday's win against top-seeded Rice, finished the day 2-for-4 with a walk to go with the home run.
"It was better," Keedy said of his injury. "The Lord is good. That rain yesterday had to be all Jesus to give me a day off. I did a lot of treatment this morning and yesterday to get me ready to play."
UAB, seeded eighth, is now 26-32 on the year, while fourth-seeded Houston falls to 35-22.
Mitch Kloskowski got the start on the mound for UAB and gave the Blazers 7.1 stellar innings in which he gave up four runs on six hits with all four runs being in his final third inning pitched in the eighth. Billy Lichtner (1-1) got the win after closing out the final 1.2 innings.
"This was a really special day for our kids," UAB head coach Brian Shoop said. "Eighth and ninth innings have been tough on our club, but it was a fantastic job by Billy to keep us in there and I told him to take a deep breath and it was a tie game and we still had a chance and he did."
Chase Dempsay (5-3) got the loss for Houston after throwing the final inning and giving up the walk-off homer.
Left fielder Phil Bell was 4-for-4 at the plate for UAB with two RBI, while shortstop Jonathan Merritt was 2-for-4 with two RBI.
Houston was led offensively by third baseman Bryan Pounds who was 2-for-4 with an RBI.
Merritt and second baseman Nick Crawford walked to lead off the bottom of the first for UAB and then Keedy out-hustled an infield single to load the bases for third baseman Luke Stewart who chopped a ground out to first base to score Merritt and give the Blazers a 1-0 lead.
Later in the first, with the bases still loaded and two outs, Bell grounded a single through the right side to score Crawford to take a 2-0 edge. UAB went on to leave the bases loaded in the inning.
The Blazers extended their lead to 3-0 in the second when Merritt knocked a triple to center field and then scored on an RBI-single to second base by Crawford.
In the fifth, Hardy reached on a single and then stole second and advanced to third on a throwing error by Houston catcher Austin Goolsby. With Hardy standing 90 feet away, Bell caught the Cougar defense off guard by laying down a two-out bunt towards second base which he beat out for a single to score Hardy and give UAB a 4-0 lead.
Still leading 4-0 in the top of the eighth, Kloskowski walked one and gave up two singles to load the bases for Houston left fielder Jake Stewart who drew a full count walk to score pinch hitter Chris Wallace to make it 4-1.
Stewart's walk ended Kloskowski's day on the mound. Lichtner came on in relief and gave up an RBI-single to Bryan Pounds and then followed that at bat by allowing a two-run single through the left side by first baseman Jimmy Cesario to tie the game, 4-4.
Lichtner was then able to get a pair of fly outs to get out of the side with the score still tied and then retired the Cougars 1-2-3 in the ninth.
Keedy led off the bottom half of the ninth and drilled a 1-1 offering from Dempsay deep over the left-center field wall to give UAB the 5-4 victory.
UAB will await the winner of Houston and East Carolina on Saturday at 12:30 p.m. UAB will need to win one game on Saturday to advance to Sunday's championship game, while the winner of Friday night's game between the Cougars and the Pirates will need to win twice.
Saturday's game can be heard live on Blazer All-Access at UABsports.com.
