John Melvin University baseball hosted the first ever matchup in the Kingdom Cup series between John Melvin Universtity and John Melvin Christian College this past weekend in Crowley, LA. The weekend series gave two thrilling games and a boarderline historic performance and gave flashes of the great games to come in the series.
Game one was a classic pitchers dual between the two squads. Millers starting pitcher Garrett Walker gave a steller perfomance on the bump, throwing 7 innings on just 87 pitches, allowing 2 earned runs and striking out 8 Mowhawks. Peyton Ford entered the game in the 8th and closed out the game with 2 hitless and scoreless inning with 3 punchouts, earning the win. Despite the pitching performance on the mound, the Millers had to come from behind to win the game in dramatic fasion. Trailing 3-1 in the bottom of the 8th inning, Noah Watkins drove a ball off the right field fence to score Peyton Wysong and bring the game within 1 run. The 9th inning was all Millers as Cabet Blanchard came off the bench to lead off the inning with a single, Gavin Gary was then hit by a pitch, Braeden Morgan sacrified Blanchard and Gary over but then reached base on an error by the first baseman, Trevor Durr tied the game on a fly ball to the left fielder to score Blanchard, JT Teuton was intentonaly walked to load the bases with one out, and finally Lane Kratzer sent the Millers home as winners after pulling a ball by the first basement and scoring Gary to win the ball game 4-3!
Coming off the exciting win the night before, Game 2 of the series was all Millers from the start. Ace Pitcher Gavin LeBlanc took the mound and very nearly had a date with destiny. LeBlanc threw all 7 innings in shutout fasion while striking out 9 Mowhawks. More impressive, LeBlanc carried a No-Hitter into the 7th inning with two outs before allowing his first hit of the game. The No-Hitter would have been the first solo No-Hitter in school history. Second total after Troy Morel & Bryce Lajunie combined to throw a No-Hitter over Wiley College in 2023. The Miller offense exploded for three runs in the first inning, one in the second, three more in the third and two in the fith inning to lead to a 9-0 victory and a series win. Connor Pleasant lead the way with two doubles and two RBI's, Trevor Durr also picked up a multi-hit game in the winning effort.
Game 3 of the series started off looking like it would be a repeat of the previous game, with the Millers scoring three runs in the first inning to jump out to a 3-0 lead. The offense stalled from there and the Mowhawks stormed back to take the lead after scoring four runs in the fourth inning. Willy Flynn and Caleb Ougel were the heros on the mound, coming in after JMCC took the lead and throwing 4 innings of the no-hit and shutout baseball to allow the Miller offense to come back and win the game. Tied 4-4 in the 6th inning, the Miller offense got back on track to score 4 runs and take a commanding 8-4 lead. JT Tueton led the inning off with a double, Josh Guidroz was hit by a pitch, Andrew Ashby walked to load the bases. Taylor Walters grounded into a fielders choice to score Eli Musgraves and take the lead, Noah Watkins walked to load the bases again, and Braeden Morgan broke the game open with a bases clearing triple to take the 8-4 lead. Morgan was the standout of the game on offense, picking up two hits, scoring two runs, and picking up three RBI's.
JMU remains undefeted in NSAC conference play after the weekend sweep and also takes a 3-0 lead in the Kingdom Cup series, which will resume on April 4th & 5th in Pensacola.
The Millers return to action on Friday when they travel to beautiful Paris (Texas) for a weekend matchup with Paris Junior College.
