BECKLEY, W.Va. – Concord scored four runs in the bottom of the eighth here Wednesday morning to snap a 1-1 tie and hand West Liberty a 5-1 loss in the first game of the West Virginia Conference baseball tournament.

It was a game of missed opportunities for Coach Eric Burkle's Hilltoppers (21-25), who put runners on base in each of the first seven innings against Mountain Lion starter Ryan Weatherholtz but couldn't push anybody across the plate.

West Liberty starter Dylan Grosul matched zeroes with Weatherholtz through the first six frames before Concord's Ryan Johnston led off the bottom of the seventh with a solo home run to break up the scoreless tie.

The Hilltoppers struck back in the top of the eighth. Travis Denman led off the inning with a single, chasing Weatherholtz. Tim Mirandy sacrificed Denman to second before reliever Chris Baker got Andrew Henry to fly out to right.

Brian Castilow drew a walk to keep the inning alive and Mike Johnson followed with an RBI single up the middle to tie the game. An error by the centerfielder allowed the runners to move up to second and third but Baker got out of the inning with an infield grounder.

Concord (33-18), the top hitting team in the WVIAC, finally broke through against Grosul in the eighth with Johnston's second home run in as many innings – a two-out, two-run blast – capping the four-run uprising.

Anthony Pierro led WLU at the plate with three singles while Denman banged out a pair of hits and scored the Hilltoppers' only run. 

West Liberty will try to stay alive in the double-elimination event on Thursday when they take on No. 9-ranked Seton Hill (37-14) in a 9:30 a.m. elimination game. The top-seeded Griffins were shocked, 16-14, by Charleston (20-27) in their tournament opener on Wednesday.

BASEBALL

WVIAC Tournament

(at Beckley, W.Va.)

First Round

Concord 5, West Liberty 1

West Liberty 000 000 010 – 1  7  0

Concord 000 000 14x – 5  6  1

WLU: Grosul lp (6SO, 1W), Peterson (8) (0SO, 0W) and Nagel. Pierro 3S; Denman 2S; Johnson S, rbi

Con: Weatherholtz (3SO, 5W), Baker wp (8) (0SO, 1W) and Brockway. Johnston 2HR, 3rbi; Seigel D, rbi; Mays S, rbi