BOX SCORE
TERRE HAUTE, IND. -- Manchester College defeated Anderson University 5-0 to claim the Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference Baseball Tournament and claim the automatic bid for the Division III National Tournament.
Manchester defeated Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology 8-1 in their first tournament game on Thursday. The Spartans then defeated Franklin College 11-5 to advance to the championship round. In first round of the championship, Anderson defeated Manchester 2-1 before the Spartans rebounded to claim the title 5-0.
Pitcher Bryce Murphy threw a four-hit shutout, striking out two batters for his eighth win of the season.
Robert Heirtz collected three
hits and one run batted in to lead the Spartan offensive
effort. Trevor Kimm added two hits with a run scored and one
RBI whil Cody Schell scored twice.
Anderson's Tyler Watson struck out five batters in relief to lead the Ravens effort.
The Spartans took an early 2-0 lead in the second inning, started with a home run by Jordan Nieman to open the inning. Schell then doubled and scored on a single Nathan Felver.
Manchester added another run in the fourth inning when Heritz doubled down the left field line to to score Trevor Kimm.
The champions added two more runs of insurance in the seventh inning.
With the win, Manchester improved to 24-19 on the season. Anderson fell to 28-17. The tournament victory allowed Manchester to become the first team to win five conference tournament titles in the 20-year history of the HCAC/ICAC tournament and marked their first since the 2005 season.