CARY, N.C. – In describing Wednesday's leadoff homerun, calling it a long ball would be an understatement.
Kyle Garlick sent a shot clear out of Coleman Field in the first at-bat of the ballgame, fueling a 5-1 victory for Cal Poly Pomona over No. 3-ranked Mercyhurst. To access a Facebook photo album of the game,
click here.
Garlick's monster shot to the facility parking lot also moved him up to No. 1 on the single-season homerun leaderboard with 17 this year.
The win pushes the eighth-ranked Broncos one step deeper into the NCAA Division II Baseball Championships bracket. CPP will play Thursday at 1 p.m. Pacific (4 p.m. Eastern) against the No. 2-ranked Catawba, a team that is 2-0 this week in Cary.
With four teams still in contention for the NCAA Division II national title in the double-elimination format, the Broncos (2-1 in Cary) will be aiming for two wins against Catawba (2-0 in Cary) for a chance to play for the championship.
Continuing to build on the program record for number of wins, the Green and Gold now hold a 45-16 mark in the 2015 season.
After the Garlick's leadoff homer, the NCAA.com play-by-play announcer in Cary declared: "That thing went 435 feet as if it was nothing!"
Taking the mound for the Broncos in the game was
Chris Powell, who did a stellar job. He threw eight innings of five-hit, one-run ball, striking out six in the process and paving the way for
Austin Boyle and
J.J. Franklin to finish things off in relief.
Powell, a senior from Upland, has thrown 92.2 innings this year and allowed just 64 hits while maintaining a 2.33 earned run average.
In the second inning the Green and Gold squad posted another run on the board for themselves as
Nicholas Bruno, who secured four hits, four runs, and a run batted in in yesterday's contest, sent a slow roller to the Lakers' second baseman. His contact, while resulting in a groundout, gave
Ryan Webberley enough time to score from third.
To keep things consistent, the Broncos added another run in the third inning with a single down the left field line. Matt Munoz sent a knock down the left field line that enabled
Nick Cooksey to score from second base and give the CPP team its third run of the game.
As if hitting the longest ball of the year wasn't enough, in the fifth Garlick added a triple to his resume for the game with a long shot in the right-center gap that allowed Bruno to score from second for the Broncos' fourth run of the game.
The Lakers got their first run of the ball game in the bottom half of the seventh inning with a homerun over the left field fence.
As the designated home team, the Mercyhurst squad made a few pitching changes in the top of the ninth inning in an attempt to quell the CPP run production. However it was to no avail, as the Broncos added one more run to game on a wild pitch, allowing Webberley to score and giving the game its final 5-1 result.
