No. 17 Taylor’s Season Ends at Hands of No. 7 Missouri Baptist
UPLAND, Ind. – An early five-run lead slipped away late Wednesday evening at Winterholter Field in the 2024 NAIA Baseball Championship Opening Round as the 17th-ranked Taylor baseball team (42-16) was defeated 11-7 by No. 7 Missouri Baptist (41-11-1), thus ending the Trojans’ season.
Fifth-year senior Alec Holcomb got TU started on the right foot with two shutdown innings, and the Taylor offense rewarded him by putting up five runs in the second inning.
The Trojans first scored on a fielder’s choice, RBI from Camden Knepp, on which an error also occurred. Taylor took advantage of the extra out with a sacrifice fly by Mason David and back-to-back doubles from Sam Gladd and Brayden Manning.
MBU got three runs back in the third inning on a three-run homer, but David went deep in the fourth frame for his 10th homer of the season to make the score 6-3, TU.
Holcomb ended his day – and career – going a strong 4.2 innings with six strikeouts, as Dalton Swinehart stranded a pair for the final out in the fifth inning to preserve Taylor’s three-run advantage.
The Spartans cut into their deficit with a two-run shot in the sixth, and they broke things open in the seventh inning, taking a commanding 11-6 edge.
Luke Picchiotti hit a ball into orbit – his 10th home run of 2024 – to lead off the bottom of the ninth frame and make it 11-7, but that would be all she wrote concerning TU’s comeback effort.
Conner Miller allowed no earned runs in 2.1 innings of relief for TU, while Gladd was the star offensively with a season-high four hits to go along with two runs batted in.
Defensively, Ben Kennedy made an awe-inspiring diving catch to his right on a tattooed line drive that saved at least a run in the third frame, and Jacob Caruso threw out one baserunner stealing to move his final career tally to 99 runners caught stealing.
Taylor’s 42-win season matches its 2023 total, tying for the second most wins in program history. The .724 win percentage is also the second best in the history of the team.
As a team, TU set program records in 2024 for most walks (349) and saves (19) in a single season.
Individually, Gabel Pentecost, Nick Crabtree, Jake Boyer, Swinehart, Knepp, Gladd, David and Manning all moved into the top 10 in TU’s all-time single-season leaders of various statistical categories, with Crabtree’s .136 opposing batting average, Gladd’s 22 hit-by-pitches and Knepp’s 62 walks all ranking second all-time in Trojan history in those respective categories.