NORFOLK, Va. – Sophomore left hander Matt Outman scattered eight singles in a nine-inning complete-game shutout as Norfolk State advanced to the MEAC Baseball Tournament championship round with a 5-0 win over Savannah State on Sunday night at Marty L. Miller Field.
Outman (8-2) picked up his second win in five days in this tournament and continued a string of stellar pitching performances by NSU coming out of the loser’s bracket. The Spartans (23-25) will be making their sixth-ever MEAC Baseball Tournament championship round appearance and first since 2011. They will meet Southern Division top seed Bethune-Cookman (25-31) in the title round beginning at 11 a.m. Monday.
Bethune-Cookman is unbeaten in the tournament, so NSU will need to beat the Wildcats twice to secure their first-ever MEAC title. B-CU has won 13 of the last 15 MEAC baseball titles.
Outman tossed his first career shutout and NSU’s first since Chris Horne’s seven-hitter against Coppin State on April 20 of last season. Outman matched his career high with eight strikeouts in pitching his fourth complete game of the year, but first in a nine-inning game. His previous three complete games all came in seven-inning contests.
As they did in their two games Saturday, the Spartans had their offense clicking early. For the second time in the tournament, lead-off man Andre’ Moore tripled in NSU’s first at-bat in the bottom of the first. He easily scored on a double into the right-field corner by Justin Lee. Lee scored on a Zach Markel single for a 2-0 NSU lead.
SSU starter Zach McCormack settled down after that, but the Spartans were able to pull away with single runs in the fifth, sixth and seventh innings. In the fifth, Moore walked and advanced to third on a Tiger error. Markel hit a deep sacrifice fly to center to allow Moore to score. In the sixth, Cody Ellis hit a one-out triple and scored on a single by Justin Burrell over the drawn-in SSU infield to make it 4-0.
The Spartans’ run in the eighth came thanks to a two-out rally. Lee drew a walk from SSU reliever Ryan Doyle and stole second. Lee advanced to third on a wild pitch and scored on Cameron Day’s single up the middle to push the NSU advantage to 5-0.
Outman did the rest. He walked just one batter on the night to earn his eighth win of the year, second-most in the MEAC and most by a Spartan since Luke Foss’ school-record 10 in 2007. He allowed two singles in the ninth but got Kevin Herlihy to strike out swinging to end the game.
Outman, who started the tourney-opener against North Carolina Central, has yielded just one run in 14.1 innings in his two starts this week. As a team, the Spartans have yielded just five runs in their four tournament victories.
Moore went 3-for-4 and scored twice for NSU. Markel was 1-for-1 with two walks and two RBI. Lee went 1-for-3 with two stolen bases and two runs scored.
David Richards had two hits for the defending MEAC champion Tigers, who ended their season at 22-31. McCormack (2-3) took the loss, allowing seven hits and four runs, three earned, in six innings.