No. 2 Seed Baseball Shutouts No. 3 LSU Alexandria to Open 2026 NAIA Opening Round

KINGSPORT, Tenn.- The quest for the ninth appearance at the Avista NAIA Baseball World Series began for the baseball team on Monday. The team played their first game of the 2026 NAIA Baseball National Championship Opening Round as the No. 2 seed at the Kingsport Bracket. Their first game came and went with a 7-0 win against the No. 3 seed LSU Alexandria Generals.

After three strikeouts by Justin Jackson to force a scoreless first inning for the Generals, TWU started the scoring in the bottom half of the inning. Allan Gil Fernandez scored the first of two runs with a solo bomb over the left-center field wall. Standing on second after a walk and a stolen base, a single by Kolton Reynolds gave Josh Shelly the time to get to home plate, giving the Bulldogs a 2-0 lead at the end of the first inning. 

As Jackson continued to deal one-way tickets back to the opposing team's dugout, the Bulldogs used a second home run to move their lead. This time, the dinger came in the fourth inning off the bat of Thomas Teel, who battled from a 0-2 count and six consecutive foul balls to send a two-run shot over the left field wall, bringing in Brayan Espinoza in the process, who got on with a single. Shelly was responsible for the last three runs of the game. 

In the fifth inning, with Fernandez and Rob Gordon standing on third and second base respectively, Shelly hit a single up the middle that brought in both runners. Then in the eighth inning, Shelly placed the exclamation point on the win with the team's third home run of the game, a solo shot over left-center field. 

Jackson pitched all nine innings in the complete-game shutout, finishing with 10 strikeouts and only giving up two hits, his second game in a row with double-digit strikeouts. Shelly led the team with three RBIs to go along with two RBIs from Teel and an RBI each from Reynolds and Fernandez. 

TWU (41-14) returns to the action in the Opening Round in the winner's portion of the bracket and will play at 2:30 p.m. on Tuesday against the winner of No. 1 seed Webber International University and No. 4 seed Indiana Wesleyan University.