Grand-slammed

Rocke Musgraves caught sight of something in the dugout he hadn't seen all spring. Five innings into the Pilots' 57th game of the season, he detected doubt.

"For the first time, guys were questioning themselves," the Louisiana State Shreveport coach said in regard to his team's mood as it contemplated a three-run deficit and the impending consequences.

But rather than fixating on what would have been one of the biggest washouts in NAIA World Series history, the Pilots rediscovered the strut of the nation's top-ranked team.

As for dubious distinctions, the only one passed along Monday afternoon landed in the lap of Lewis-Clark State.

Devin Greco capped LSU Shreveport's late-inning resurrection with a grand slam in the bottom of the ninth, lifting the top-seeded Pilots to a 7-3 victory over the No. 6 Warriors at Harris Field.

Greco's home run, a first-pitch blast to left field off Mitchell Wilhite, largely stifled a crowd of 4,490 - and perpetuated a trend that the host team has been eager to buck. The Warriors, who won the last of their 16th national championships in 2008, have gone 1-2 in each Series since.

"It's tough to go out any way, but we played hard," said L-C coach Gary Picone, whose ballclub finished 42-14 in his second year as the successor to Ed Cheff. "I thought we pitched well, I thought we swung that bats pretty decent ... . I thought we played well all day."

LSU Shreveport hitters, though, were clearly better down the stretch.

Although that was representative of how the Pilots have played throughout the season, it stood in stark contrast to their Series performance to that point. After having been limited to four hits in Saturday's 2-1 loss to Rogers State - not to mention striking out 18 times - the Pilots mustered just three hits off L-C starter Austin Pentecost through the first five innings and trailed 3-0.

With Musgraves preaching patience to his hitters in an attempt to inflate Pentecost's pitch count, the Pilots lacked their trademark aggressiveness at the plate.

"Sometimes as a coach you just need to get out of the way," Musgraves said. "We told them to go up there and compete, and these guys just lowered their shoulders and went to work."

LSU Shreveport proceeded to string together four hits in the sixth inning - among them RBI singles by Manny Estrada and Stephen Hobbins - to chase Pentecost.

Wilhite, who was summoned in relief, ended that threat, but the Pilots pulled even in the seventh when Kyle Pearson smacked his team-leading 11th home run, a solo shot to left-center field.

The Warriors, who established their advantage behind Jordan Payne's two-run single in the second inning and Tanner Moore's RBI single in the fourth, managed just three hits afterward. Jake Kight (4-0) relieved Pilots starter Matt Lackie to start the eighth, and faced four batters in each of the final two frames.

Ridge Gosoulin opened the bottom of the ninth - LSU Shreveport was designated the home team - with a single to right, and Pearson followed with a double down the left-field line. Wilhite (2-2) then issued an intentional walk to Greg Friesen to create a force-out situation around the diamond.

But Greco circumvented that desparation strategy in the most dramatic fashion possible.

Needing nothing more than a medium-depth fly ball to score the winning run by way of a sacrifice fly, Greco instead drilled Wilhite's opening fastball into to the left-field bleachers.

"All I wanted to do was put the ball in play and hopefully drive it deep enough to score the run," said Greco, a junior from Honolulu. "But I got it good, and we're moving on."

Accordingly, the Pilots (52-5) avoid the distinction of becoming the Series's first No. 1 seed to lose its first two games since the NAIA adopted the current seeding process in 2003.

The Pilots "came out in the ninth with a little fire under their butt" L-C catcher Aaron DeGuire said. "They came out with some fire and did what they had to do."

Lewis-Clark St. 020 100 000-3 7 0

LSU Shreveport 000 002 104-7 12 0

Pentecost, Wilhite (6) and Deguire. Lackie, Kight (8) and Dorton.

W - Kight (4-0). L - Wilhite (2-2).

L-C hits - Payne, Knigge (2B), Bridges (2B), Peterson, Miller, Moore.

LSUS hits - Gonsoulin, Pearson 2 (HR, 2B), Friesen, Greco (2B, HR).

A. - 4,490.

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Browitt may be contacted at sports@lmtribune.com or (208) 848-2268.