Eagles Fall to Lyon in Opening Round of AMC Tournament

The Williams Baptist University baseball team lost its opening round American Midwest Conference Championship tournament game to Lyon College 20-14 Tuesday afternoon. 

 The Eagles used a six-run second inning to build an early lead over the Scots, but it would not last as Lyon posted back-to-back six-run innings of its own in the fourth and fifth innings and never surrendered the lead despite charges from the WBU offense.

Nicholas Jones and Jarron Brantley each belted 2-run home runs in the second inning to help spark the Williams offense. Jones finished the night 2-for-4 with two RBIs, while Brantley added two hits of his own with two driven in.

After Lyon scored a combined 12 runs in the fourth and fifth innings to take a 14-6 edge, the Eagles began chipping away at the lead. They scored a run in the bottom of the fifth on a Desmon Cordova sacrifice fly to get within 14-7, but Lyon answered in the top half of the inning with three more runs to push the edge to 17-7.

Williams got four runs back in the bottom of the sixth with RBI hits from Tate Isaacs, Ryan Collins and Jacob Watkins. Taylor Roeder flied out to center to drive in a run, to get the lead down to 17-11. 

Lyon continued to stay hot at the plate, however, and added two runs in the seventh and another in the eighth to go up 20-11. WBU got three runs back in the bottom of the eighth on RBI hits from Collins, Mason Andrews and a sacrifice from Cordova, but could do no more damage.

With the loss, Williams will play at 4 p.m. on Wednesday, May 3 against the loser of the day's 1 p.m. contest. The participants of that game will include Columbia and the winner of Tuesday night's Williams Woods and Central Baptist College contest.