Felix Hits Walk-Off Homer to Keep Troy Alive

Friday, May 28

Murfreesboro, Tenn.

12:30 p.m.

Troy University

Middle Tennessee

Felix Hits Walk-Off Homer to Keep Troy Alive

5/28/2010 10:00:00 PM | Baseball

MURFREESBORO, Tenn. – Apparently Steven Felix has a strong desire to continue wearing a Troy baseball uniform.

The senior from Panama City, Fla., ensured at least one more game for the Trojans with a two-out walk-off homer in the bottom of the ninth inning on Friday afternoon at Reese Smith Field to lift Troy to a come-from-behind 6-5 victory over host Middle Tennessee at the Sun Belt Conference tournament.

Troy (35-26) advances to face Arkansas State in a game scheduled for 7:30 p.m. tonight. The Trojans will have to defeat the Red Wolves (30-26) twice to advance to the championship game. The start time for the first game between Troy and ASU is up in the air because of heavy rain and thunderstorms in the area.

The Trojans trailed MTSU (35-23) 5-2 going to the bottom of the eighth inning, but scored three times in that frame against four Blue Raiders pitchers to knot the score.

“Before I got up to bat, I noticed that the wind started blowing,” Felix said. “Of course, ithad been blowing in.”

After Blue Raiders reliever Daniel Palo (1-4) retired the first two Troy hitters in the ninth, Felix came to the plate. With the wind swirling out to left with the approaching storms, the senior ripped the first pitch from Palo foul deep to the right side.

Palo missed on three straight pitches, running to count to 3-1, before leaving a fastball on the outer half of the plate. Felix lifted the ball deep to left-center, getting a boost from Mother Nature, and thrust his right fist into the air between first and second base as the ball just cleared the wall.

“He threw a few pitches in the dirt but he finally gave me one to hit,” Felix said. “I put the barrel to the ball and lifted it to left-center.”

The Felix blast made a winner of junior Chase Whitley (6-3), who recorded the final four outs for Troy after surrendering a bloop single to Justin Miller in the eighth, pushing the MTSU lead to 5-2.

Junior Drew Hull started for Troy and worked six solid innings for the Trojans, but ran into problems in the seventh after a having a cramp in his pitching hand. With the game tied at 2-2, MTSU got a solo homer from Will Skinner and a two-run shot from Ryan Ford before senior Andrew Dickinson relieved Hull.

“I thought we got a good pitching performance from Drew Hull,” Trojans coach Bobby Pierce said. “He was starting the leave the ball up in the seventh and I had to take him out. I'll take the blame for the three runs.”

For most of the game, the starting pitchers dominated. MTSU's Eric Gilley held Troy to just four hits through seven innings, but left after giving up as leadoff single to Adam Bryant and walking Felix to start the eighth.

Hunter Dawson came on and, after a wild pitched moved both runners up a base, Whitley delivered a sacrifice fly to score Bryant. Ryan Ditthardt followed with an RBI single to extend his hit streak to 13 games.

Justin Guidry was called on to pitch for the Blue Raiders and, after getting a ground out, gave up back-to-back singles to J.R. Myers and T.J. Rivera to tie the game at 5-5.

Troy opened the scoring in the game when Bryant hit a leadoff homer in the first. It was his sixth leadoff homer of the year and his 20th overall home run. He is just the fourth player in school history to hit 20 homers in a season.

MTSU got that run back in the third when Tyler Burnett doubled with two outs and scored on a single by Tyler Acker. Troy, playing as the home team, came right back in the bottom of the frame to take a 2-1 lead when Felix drew a two-out walk and scored on a double by Whitley.

Bryant, Felix and Rivera had two hits each to lead Troy while Burnett, Acker, Miller and Skinner had two each for Middle Tennessee.

“I like the way our team hung in there,” Pierce said. “Gilley pitched a heck of a ball game for them. It was a hard-fought game between two very even teams, we were just fortunate to get the last bat.”