No. 2 Seed Baseball Shutouts No. 4 Seed Indiana Wesleyan to Advance to Kingsport Bracket Championship

KINGSPORT, Tenn.- A trip to the championship round was on the line for the baseball team on Tuesday. The second seed in the 2026 NAIA Baseball National Championship Opening Round Kingsport Bracket faced the No. 4 seed Indiana Wesleyan University Wildcats, with the winner advancing to the championship round of the bracket. The final result sends TWU to the championship portion of the Kingsport Bracket as the team picked up their second shutout win in a row at the Opening Round, winning the game 8-0 to play for their third consecutive Opening Round Title. 

Similar to the game on Monday, the Bulldogs started the first inning with two runs, one of them coming off a solo home run. Batting in the top of the first, Rob Gordon was the first base runner for the team, hitting a double to left-center. After getting to third on a passed ball, Gordon scored on a Josh Shelly sacrifice fly to break the goose egg on the scoreboard. The bomb came on the next at-bat, taken by David Ballenilla, and went over the left-center field wall. 

As the defense and Cameron Goffar continued to protect the lead by retiring 12 consecutive batters from the third inning to the seventh inning, Tennessee Wesleyan grew their lead in the fourth, fifth, sixth, and eighth innings. 

Kolton Reynolds started the fourth inning with a single. An errant throw on a pick-off attempt allowed Reynolds to move to the other corner of the infield. Reynolds would score on a sacrifice fly by Jacob Tolson to move the team's lead to 3-0. 

In the fifth inning, with Gordon standing on first after a single, Shelly came to the dish and hit his second home run in two days, extending the lead to 5-0. 

A full count ended in a walk for Ethan Wright to begin the sixth inning. A sacrifice bunt by Tolson moved Wright into scoring position second, and score he would as a pinch-hit single by Cody McGill gave the runner the time to run over third base and home plate. The run moved the team's lead to 6-0. 

Tennessee Wesleyan added two more runs in the eighth inning. Like the sixth inning, Wright turned a full count into a walk to open the eighth inning. A hit by pitch on Tolson's at-bat put two runners on base. The runners moved a base forward on a sacrifice bunt by McGill before a wild pitch moved the runners another base onward, bringing Wright across home plate. Courtesy-runner Jonathan Bosque finished his time on the bases when he scored on Fernandez's sacrifice fly, moving the team's lead to the 8-0 score they went on to win with. 

Shelly led the offense with three RBIs to go with RBIs by Ballenilla, McGill, Fernandez, and Tolson. Goffar pitched all nine innings in the shutout win, striking out three batters while only giving up four hits. 

The Bulldogs (42-14) sit a win away from qualifying for their ninth Avista NAIA Baseball World Series. The team will learn their opponent in the first championship game after the morning game on Wednesday, with the championship round set for 2:30 p.m.