LEXINGTON, Va. – Charleston Southern's Stew Brase tossed a complete game and the No. 3-seeded Buccaneers pounded out 15 hits to defeat No. 4 seed Winthrop, 9-3, in Game 5 of the 2011 Royal Purple Big South Baseball Championship presented by Triangle Rent A Car, May 25 at Gray-Minor Stadium. With the victory, Charleston Southern improves to 29-28 and advances to play No. 2 seed Liberty Thursday night at 7:00pm. Winthrop falls to 27-29 and moves to the loser's bracket, where the Eagles will face No. 1 seed Coastal Carolina Thursday afternoon at 3:00pm. The win is Charleston Southern's first victory in the Tournament since 2002 and snaps the Bucs' 7-game losing streak in the Conference postseason.
Charleston Southern opened the scoring with two runs in the first inning. Brantley Meier was hit-by-pitch and advanced to second on Alex Tomasovich's single through the right side. Jaren Sustar moved both runners up a base on a ground out to short, and Nick Chinners plated Meier with a ground out to first. After Derek Smith walked, Walt Quattlebaum singled to right to score Tomasovich.
Winthrop tied the game at 2-2 in the third inning. Patrick Gamblin and Austen Barber started the rally by reaching on back-to-back errors and putting runners on the corner. Tyler Cook advanced Barber to second on a grounder to Brase, and Cam Walters' high chopper over Chinners' head at first went for a double and scored Gamblin and Barber. Walters would later advance to third on Matt Lobacz's single up the middle, but Chas Crane's liner was snared by Tomasovich at short to end the scoring.
The Buccaneers regained the lead with a three-run outburst in the bottom of the third on RBI doubles from Smith and Tom Burkett, in addition to a run-scoring single by Matt Still.
Charleston Southern tacked on a sixth run in the sixth frame when Sustar singled to center to score Drew Woodall, who led off the inning with a walk. Meanwhile, Brase held Winthrop scoreless for three-straight innings until allowing a solo home run to Gamblin to open the seventh inning. The blast cut CSU's lead to 6-3, but the Bucs countered with three scores in the bottom half to move back ahead, 9-3.
Brase allowed eight hits and just one run in his third complete game of the season. He walked one and struck out three to improve to 6-7 on the year. Winthrop starter Tyler Mizenko (5-3) went six innings, allowed nine hits, six runs (all earned) with two walks and two strikeouts.
Quattlebaum led the Bucs with three hits and two RBI, while Smith had two doubles. Tomasovich, Sustar, Still and Burkett also had two hits each for Charleston Southern. TJ Olesczuk led Winthrop with three hits, and Walters had two hits and two driven in.
Charleston Southern Head Coach Stuart Lake "The biggest thing is you want to settle in to a tournament, which is hard to do if you don't pitch well. Stew Brase gave us a chance to kind of catch our breath and then the offense got going. We look at all the other games, and it seems like Coastal had (a complete game) today, Liberty probably could have (had a complete game). It's huge. I'm very proud of him. You've got to hit this time of year, too. I've always said everything can go away, just don't let your hitting – swing the bat. We faced a really good guy tonight. Tyler Mizenko had some really good starts coming into this. I'm really proud we got some swings off on him."
Winthrop Head Coach Tom Riginos
"I think our guys really competed out there tonight. Tyler Mizenko did not have his best stuff, but he was out there competing and gave us his best effort. We just came up a little bit short today. Charleston Southern played well, and you have to give them credit. They came out and swung the bats. The whole key right now is we have to make sure our minds are right for tomorrow and have a positive attitude."
Courtesy: Big South Conference
All content © Copyright 2000 - 2012 WorldNow and WCSC, a Raycom Media Station. 
