Samford Slugs Through Comeback

GREENVILLE, S.C.—Samford head coach Casey Dunn called it “positive frustration.” That was how he described the Bulldogs’ dugout after East Tennessee State scored eight runs in the top of the seventh inning on Friday, leaving Samford with nine outs left in its season.

“After the big inning, the biggest thing for me was our kids got into it a bit,” Dunn said. “I think we had some guys that showed some frustration in a positive way, and that kind of lit a fire under them. … It’s great to react in that way, but you’ve got to follow it up with runs.”

They didn’t take long.

Junior third baseman Hunter Swilling came up with two on and one out in the bottom half of the frame against ETSU’s Blake Smith and blasted a hanging slider on the first pitch he saw over the left-center field wall. Life, just like that. After an ETSU pitching change, Quinn strode to the plate to face sidearming righthander Peyton Taylor, who tried to get a fastball past the Bulldogs’ star with his first pitch. Quinn was ready, and launched a moonshot homer over Fluor Field’s Green Monster in left.

Two pitches, two home runs, and suddenly an 11-4 lead dwindled to 11-8. Three innings later, Bulldogs finished their rally, winning 12-11 in the 10th to stave off elimination in the Southern Conference tournament and end ETSU’s season in heartbreaking fashion.

“We knew we had nine outs to make up runs,” senior first baseman Alex Lee said. “We knew we just needed to chip away, and we needed to do that by good at-bats, one by one. We needed to get something there in the bottom of the seventh, leading into the eighth and ninth. We were able to put some things together and one thing led into another.”

What it led to was another hero’s moment for Quinn. Samford loaded the bases with no outs when Quinn came up again in the bottom of the eighth, facing righthander Ryan Simpler. Simpler eschewed the first-pitch fastball in favor of a breaking ball, but Quinn was ready for that, too, pounding a bases-clearing double off the right field wall to bring the Bulldogs even—the kind of opposite field thump that’s going to make him a high draft pick in a couple weeks.

What had been a quiet tournament for Quinn—2-for-10 before those two at-bats—suddenly became a much different tale. From his point of view though, nothing about his approach changed, only the results.

“I normally always just try to be aggressive at the plate,” Quinn said. “I knew they were going to try to get ahead. A lot of pitchers try to get ahead with the first pitch. So, I was just trying to be aggressive and hit something hard.”

Lee provided the coup de gras in the 10th, poking a walkoff single through the left side that scored Quinn, who’d led off the frame with another double. The senior raised his fist in celebration almost as soon as he left the batter’s box, knowing he’d just extended his career by at least one more day. He’d already enjoyed a monster game, going 3-for-4 with a double and a homer during the regulation nine innings. Now he’ll get a chance at another one, as will Quinn and Swilling.

Few who’ve followed the SoCon doubt the Bulldogs have the firepower to make a run through the losers’ bracket. The hill will be steep, as they’ll have to win two games on Saturday and two more on Sunday to win the title, but with the heart of their order heating up and every team running low on pitching, the Bulldogs don’t look like a team that’s done making noise.

“It’s been 59 games coming, to be honest with you,” Dunn said. “This was one of the first times I think that we really showed a little bit of grit to us. As we go into tomorrow, it’s not necessarily going to be about the best baseball team, it’s going to be about the team that can battle and fight the best, because it’s going to be a long day.

“You’re going to have to out score people. Any time you get deep into the tournament, it’s about scoring runs. I think we have as many bodies in our bullpen as anybody, and I think we’re all in a pretty similar situation as far as the quality of guys that are out there, so at the end of the day, it’s going to be about who can score runs.”

The Bulldogs have one other weapon you’ll see a lot of the rest of the weekend—their navy blue uniforms with “DOGS” emblazoned on the chest. They wore the blues in Wednesday’s win against UNC Greensboro before losing in their white uniforms to Western Carolina on Thursday.

They were back in blue Friday. As Lee put it after the game, with a completely straight face, “We will not wear another jersey.”