dogpile
3
Drury DU 36-18
4
Winner Quincy QU 32-20
Drury DU
36-18
3
Final
4
Quincy QU
32-20
Winner
Score By Periods
Team 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 R H E
Drury DU 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 1 3 8 1
Quincy QU 2 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 X 4 12 1

W: Spraker, Graham (7-5) L: Jennings, Avery (1-4) S: Crawford, Cole (9)

Game Recap: Baseball | | Brendan Bittner

CHAMPIONS! Hawks Win Third GLVC Title, Beating Drury 4-3

OZARK, Mo. – The Quincy University baseball team won the third Great Lakes Valley Conference Tournament championship in program history by edging out Drury, 4-3, in the championship game on Sunday (May 14) afternoon at U.S. Baseball Park.
 
The Hawks (32-20) earned the GLVC's automatic bid to next week's NCAA Tournament Midwest Regional and will learn their seed and host site Sunday at 9 p.m. CT in a selection show live on NCAA.com.
 
Head coach Josh Rabe, who won his second conference title as the Hawks' coach and third overall including his time as a player, turned to senior lefty Tommy Hager (O'Fallon, Mo.) for the start. Hager stranded a pair of runners in the first inning and the Hawks took an early lead in the bottom half.
 
Senior Jake Walters (St. Louis, Mo.) and junior J.C. DeMuri (Manchester, Mo.) both reached on one-out singles and they wound up scoring on RBI hits from junior Troy Wehde (St. Charles, Mo.) and sophomore Nolan Snyder (St. Louis, Mo.).
 
Hager retired the side in order in the second, but ran into trouble in the third and Rabe turned to his staff ace, senior Graham Spraker (Tucson, Ariz.). Spraker gave up an RBI groundout to start a string of 12 straight retired by the right-hander, getting the Hawks through the sixth inning.
 
The Hawks picked up a couple insurance runs in the fifth and seventh innings, both on RBI singles by Snyder, who finished 3-for-3 with three RBI and a walk.
 
Senior right-hander Mark Niebrugge (Effingham, Ill.) came on in the seventh and got into trouble, but freshman Alex Pribyl (Anoka, Minn.) got Justin Abernathy to line into a double play to end the inning.
 
The Panthers (36-18) scored a run on three hits off Pribyl in the eighth to cut it to 4-2. Junior closer Cole Crawford (Wilton, Iowa) came on in the ninth. The Panthers scored on a two-out RBI single by Ethan Owens to bring up GLVC Player of the Year Ryan Colombo with runners on first and second. Crawford got Colombo to pop out halfway between home plate and first base to start the dogpile.
 
Spraker (7-5) earned the win with his four perfect relief innings, striking out five. Crawford earned his ninth save of the season.

Wehde and senior Jack Klages (St. Louis, Mo.) joined Snyder as the Hawks with multiple hits as the Hawks out-hit the Panthers, 12-8.
 
NOTES: This was the seventh GLVC championship game appearance for the Hawks…Drury beat Quincy in the 2014 and 2015 GLVC title games…The Hawks previously won the GLVC championship in 2000 and 2011…Rabe played on the 2000 team and was in his first season as head coach in 2011…It is the first GLVC Tournament championship for any QU team since women's soccer won back-to-back titles in 2012 and 2013.
 
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