LYNCHBURG, Va. -- Despite a dazzling postseason outing by
Jackson Baird over eight innings, the Christopher Newport baseball team saw a five-run lead evaporate over the final two innings as Maryville College forced extras in the opening round of the 2026 NCAA Regional Championship hosted by the University of Lynchburg. The Captains took the lead in the top of the 13th only for the Scots to answer with two in the bottom half to walk it off, 8-7.
The Captains late-game woes over the last three weeks continued as it marked the fourth time in the last five losses that CNU surrendered the lead in the final three innings of the game. Baird left the game with a 6-2 advantage and just one inning left, but the bullpen gave up four in the ninth before ultimately allowing six runs over the final four frames. On the other side, Maryville held CNU to just one unearned run in the final 8.1 innings of action.
With the loss, Christopher Newport falls to 24-16 overall this season and will face Penn State Behrend in the first game of day two at the NCAA Regional. The elimination game will send one team home while the winner will play two games on Saturday with the second starting at approximately 6:00 p.m.
Baird highlighted the action for Christopher Newport by pitching eight strong innings for the Captains. He surrendered just two runs on five hits and two walks while striking out three.
At the plate, the Captains struck first, scoring three runs in the top of the first and one in the top of the second to build an early advantage. The 4-1 lead held until the top of the fifth when Christopher Newport tacked two more on the board to build the lead to five, 6-1.
Six runs was plenty for Baird, who got better as the game went on. He kept the Scots guessing at the plate and retired 16 of the last 20 batters he faced over the final five frames on the mound.
The offense got started when senior leadoff man
Jake Benedict blistered a game-opening double to left center to ignite the Captains' lineup. After moving up on a fly ball, junior
Aaron Maxie continued his impressive season with two outs and picked up yet another two-out RBI. The veteran slipped a hard groundball through the right side to plate Benedict for his 15th two-out RBI of the season and 35th of his career.
The two-out rally continued with
Cameron Slough and
Gus Croll each adding RBI base hits of their own to build the lead to 3-0 before the Scots even sent one batter to the plate. Slough doubled to deep center field to send Maxie around to score and Croll plated Slough with a hard-hit single into right field.
Maryville scratched one run across in the bottom half but the Captains regained the three-run lead with one swing of the bat to lead off the second inning. Rookie
Logan Adams stepped up and smashed a solo shot over the wall in left field to tie for the team lead in home runs with his sixth round-tripper of the year.
In the top of the fifth, freshman
Lukas Miller singled through the right side and advanced on an error by the Scots. After a sacrifice bunt by J. Benedict, senior
Josh Reinhold stepped up with two outs and continued the theme of timely hitting. The veteran turned on a 1-0 pitch and skied the left fielder for a two-run, two-base hit and extended the Captains lead to five, 6-1.
Baird, who had not surrendered a hit since the bottom of the third inning, returned to the mound to start the bottom of the eighth. A leadoff single ended the streak of four hitless frames but he bounced right back with a flyball to right and a grounder to third. The soft grounder forced Adams to charge in and make a stellar defensive play with a leaning line drive across the diamond with a bullet into the glove of
Aaron Maxie at first base.
Maryville finally got to Baird for another run when leading hitter Det Dettwiller delivered a two-out RBI single through the left side. The CNU right-hander limited the damage by inducing an inning-ending groundball to short to end the late threat.
Unfortunately, disaster struck in the ninth for the Captains. Maryville got the first two batters on before
Mitchell Mortensen picked up the first out of the inning with a strikeout. After one run scored, Mortensen then got the Captains within one out of the win with a groundball out right back to the mound. The Scots fell behind in nearly every at-bat as Mortensen worked into multiple two-strike counts, but an RBI double by Masin Hall and a two-run game-tying single by Brayden Evans sent the game into extra innings.
Sophomore
Charlie Gunn stranded three runners over the next two innings of scoreless relief, keeping the Captains in the game, before senior
Chase Hustead entered in the bottom of the 12th. After
Sam Benedict calmly retired the first batter,
Jake Benedict added a highlight-reel diving save in center field to keep the Scots off the basepaths with the second out. Hustead worked around a walk and a single to escape the 12th with a groundball to end the inning.
In the top of the 13th, the Captains appeared to have luck on their side when
Sam Benedict opened the inning with a scalding double to the gap in left center field. After
Josh Reinhold sacrificed him over to third, the Captains had the go-ahead run just 90 feet away from home with less than two outs. A nice defensive play by the second baseman recorded the second out, but a fielding error by the shortstop on the next batter allowed Benedict to sprint home for the go-ahead tally.
The lead would not last, as Maryville hit a game-tying home run to lead off the bottom of the 13th and the next three batters all reached to create a perilous situation for Hustead. With the infield drawn in, he bounced a pitch that Slough was unable to corral behind the plate and the wild pitch sent Maryville into a celebratory sprint.
Three Captains finished with multiple hits in the game and all nine starters registered at least one base hit against the Scots pitching staff.
Sam Benedict (2-6),
Josh Reinhold (2-5), and
Aaron Maxie (2-5) led the way. The leadoff man reached in seven of the 13 innings for CNU and came around to score in four of those opportunities.
Maryville advances to face No. 3 Lynchburg in the winner's bracket game at approximately 2:30 p.m. tomorrow. The losing team in that game will face the winning team between CNU and Penn State Behrend at 6:00 p.m. in the third game of the day on Saturday. All of the action is being played at City Stadium in Lynchburg, Va.
It marks the first time since 2019 that CNU did not win its opening game in the NCAA Regional, ending a streak of three consecutive appearances. The game was the longest NCAA Regional game in program history at 4:13 minutes, outlasting a 15-inning matchup against Immaculata University on May 17, 2024.
