Shively Sets Single-Season Win Record as TU Rolls in First Round of CLT
UPLAND, Ind. – The second-seeded Taylor baseball team (37-16) opened the 2022 Crossroads League Baseball Tournament by defeating the seventh-seed, Spring Arbor (25-26-1), by a final score of 9-to-2. Senior ace, Luke Shively (11-1), was phenomenal once again for the Trojans, tossing a complete game en route to his program-record setting 11th win of the season.
Earlier in the 2022 campaign, Shively became just the third pitcher in TU program-history to record 10 wins in a single-season, and today he became the first ever to surpass that mark. Additionally, Shively now holds 29 career-victories, which matches the program-record for wins in an individual-career set by Josh DeGraaf between 2012 and 2015.
The crafty right-hander pitched to contact en route to his program-record setting win, recording just five strikeouts in comparison to one walk and five base knocks. Shively allowed each of his two runs and three of his five hits in the ninth inning, before that retiring 12 Cougar batters in-a-row, a period of dominance that stretched between the fifth and ninth innings.
Meanwhile, Shively received more than enough run support, even on an obnoxiously windy afternoon in Upland.
The scoring got started for Taylor in the second inning, when right fielder, Camden Knepp, smacked a two-out double over the Cougar left fielder’s outstretched arm, after which the Trojans capitalized on three-straight walks to snag an early 1-0 nothing.
Shively cool-calm-and-collectedly did his thing until the Trojan bats added four more runs in the fifth inning, thanks to a pair of two-run singles through the right side of the infield hit by Kaleb Kolpien and Knepp.
Then, TJ Bass did the unthinkable in the following inning, driving a two-run home run to left that cut through 25 mile-per-hour gusts of wind blowing in from center. Bass trotted the bases en route to his 20th home run and nation-leading 86th RBI of the season, both of which stand as single-season program-records for Taylor baseball.
While Bass made it a 7-0 ballgame, the Trojan bats were not done, though perhaps more specifically Knepp was not done. With two outs and the bases loaded, the lefty right fielder snuck another two-run single through the right side of the infield, making it a 9-0 game.
Though Spring Arbor posted two runs of its own on the board in the ninth, Shively eventually recorded the 27th out to complete the round-one Taylor victory over the Cougars. Leading the TU offense, Knepp finished the game going four-for-five from the dish with four runs-batted-in.
No. 24 Taylor (37-16) is now set to take on Indiana Wesleyan (31-21) in the winner’s bracket on Monday, May 9th, at 1:00 pm back at Winterholter Field.