MASON, Ohio — With both Campbellsville and Oklahoma Baptist already sealing their bids to the NCCAA World Series semifinal round, both teams had little-to-nothing to play for on Friday night in the final pool play game at Prasco Park. Instead of wasting pitchers and racking up the innings, coach Beauford Sanders decided to throw position players and the Tigers had a chance to win late, before falling 10-6.
 
The loss is the first in the World Series but Campbellsville (38-22) will play Southwestern Christian tomorrow at 1 p.m. ET for the second semifinal contest of the day. If CU can pull out a win over the sixth-seeded Eagles, the Tigers will play for their first-ever NCCAA World Series championship. CU has saved aces Nick Przybylek and Indalecio Romo, both All-Conference performers, for the semifinal and championship round on Saturday. 
 
Southwestern Christian is the champions of Pool B, while the Tigers are the runners-up in Pool A. Oklahoma Baptist, Pool A championship, will play Emmanuel College, Pool B runner-up, at 10 a.m. for the first semifinal. Pool B was decided after a three-way tiebreaker, as Bethesda also went through Pool Play with a 3-1 record but the tiebreaker sent them home.
 
Tonight, CU threw out four positon players and a two-way guy that had compiled under 10 innings on the season but still had a chance to win late as the offense started to rally after getting down 8-2.
 
Carlos Garmendia started on the hill and took the grunt of the runs, allowing five through the first two. Three of those came off one swing of the bat – a three-run homer by Brett Berghammer.
 
Clay Valenzuela-Reece relieved Garmendia for the third and fourth innings, allowing only one run and sitting the Bison down 1-2-3 in the third – just the third inning of which Oklahoma Baptist did not score. The run in the fourth for OBU came after a leadoff hit by pitch given up by Valenzuela-Reece.
 
Oklahoma Baptist added another run in the fifth after Romello Carbuccia allowed a leadoff triple come around to score on a RBI single by Juan Gonzalez.
 
The Tigers got on the board in the fifth inning, as Riley Joyce led off the frame with the first of his two home runs on the night – and his second and third of the year – to spark CU. Later in the inning, Carbuccia doubled to deep right-center field and scored on an Bison error.
 
CU got another run back in the sixth, scoring two more. A leadoff walk to David Montoya and single by Jose Castro both came around to score cutting the CU deficit to four, 8-4.
 
The Bison added on with two more runs in the seventh inning, as Hunter Heath delivered a no-doubt two-run shot up the moon deck over the right field wall. But Campbellsville did not falter. The Tigers rallied back with two runs in the eighth thanks to Joyce's second smash of the game.
 
In the ninth, CU had the tying run on deck but could not must enough offense.
 
Overall, Riley Joyce drove in four runs with a solo shot, two-run homer and walking with the bases loaded for another RBI. Carbuccia and Castro also had two hits as CU pounded out 10.