Box Score By Dave Johnson
W&M Athletics

In the top of the third inning, William & Mary took a three-run lead and chased Elon starter Brian Edgington from the mound. In the opening round of the Colonial Athletic Association baseball tournament, it was a promising start.

Unfortunately for the Tribe, that's all it was.

Led by lights-out pitching from its bullpen and two-out production from its offense, Elon defeated W&M 7-3 Wednesday at Brooks Field. The Tribe will go against Towson, which lost to Charleston, at 11 a.m. Thursday in an elimination game.

W&M (13-28) scored three runs on five hits against Edgington, who left with two outs in the third inning. The Tribe went scoreless on two hits in 6.1 innings against relievers Trevor Kirk and Kyle Greenler.

"Usually, it's a good thing when you get to their bullpen in the third inning," W&M coach Brian Murphy said. "It certainly wasn't tonight. Credit to them for making that move as quick as they did. That won them the game.

"We had some momentum and we were having good at bats. But Kirk (4.1 innings, one hit, five strikeouts) did a really good job."

Offensively, Elon (22-20) was scoreless on one hit off Tribe starter Justin Pearson in the first two innings. From the third inning on, the Phoenix was relentless at the plate. Elon batted .462 (6-for-13) and scored five of its seven runs with two outs.

"You've got to close out innings," Murphy said. "They came up with some big two-out hits, and obviously those were killers."

The Tribe led 3-0 going into the bottom of the third inning. Matt Trehub had an RBI single after falling behind 0-2 in the count, David Hogarth drove in a run with a sacrifice fly, and Matt McDermott hit a solo home run.
But when Kirk entered with one out in the third, that all changed. He retired 11 consecutive batters, and Elon took a 6-3 lead in the bottom of the sixth.
Pinch hitter Cole Ragone ended Kirk's streak with a one-out single in the seventh, and the Phoenix got clumsy in the field with two errors to load the bases. It was the first scoring chance the Tribe had since the third inning.

But Kirk escaped by getting Jake Cone on a soft liner to shortstop and striking out Tyler Solomon.

"I thought if we could get a hit there, it could change things," Murphy said. "But we couldn't come up with the big hit. They were able to keep enough distance from us."

Trehub went 2-for-4 and drove in the Tribe's first run. McDermott hit a solo homer to lead off the third inning and perhaps saved a couple of runs with his outstanding defense at shortstop.

After a 1-2-3 first, W&M got to Edgington in the second inning. Solomon led off with a double and Matt Thomas followed with a walk. Trehub then came back from an 0-2 count and singled to right, scoring Solomon and moving Thomas to third.

Hogarth then scored Thomas with a sacrifice fly to right to make it 2-0.

McDermott led off the top of the third with a solo home run to left-center. The Tribe had a chance for more with runners on first and second with two out, but Kirk got a groundout to end the inning.

Pearson cruised through the first two innings and had two outs with a runner on first in the third. But Elon scored two runs on three consecutive hits — double, single, single — to make it 3-2.

The Phoenix had more two-out magic in the fourth. Jarrett Pico's RBI single tied it, and Justin Cassella followed with a triple to give Elon its first lead at 4-3.
Next for W&M is Towson, which lost to Charleston 6-5 on a walk-off hit by pitch. The first pitch is scheduled for 11 a.m.

"We're in survival mode at this point," Murphy said. "(Zach) Tsakounis will pitch tomorrow, and he's been good for us. We'll need to play awesome from this point forward. We didn't play awesome tonight."