May 28, 2011
WILMINGTON, NC-- James Madison defeated Old Dominion, 10-1 in the CAA Championshipgame behind the pitching of Alex Valadja and a six-run second inning to earn the automatic berth to next week's NCAA Tournament. ODU, the second seed finishes the season at 30-26, while JMU is now 40-17. This was the first time since 1994 that the number one and two seeds met for the league title.
Valadja (7-3) pitched six innings allowing only four hits, one run, two walks and nine strikeouts to pick up his seventh win of the season.
JMU exploded for six runs in the second inning highlighted by a three-runhomer by Johnny Bladel and a two-run shot by David Herbek. In the fifth Ty McFarland singled in Matt Tenaglia for a 7-1 JMU lead.
In the bottom of the second, the Monarchs loaded the bases as Shawn Sizemore (Newport News VA.) singled, freshman Ty Yesensky (endwell, NY.) walked and Edgar Hernandez (Puerto Rico) was hit with a pitch. With one out Kenny Stoneback (Colonial Heights, VA.) singled home Sizemore, but ODU left the bases loaded.
Ty McFarland singled home two runs in the seventh and Conner Brown was hit with a pitch with the bases loaded to knock in a run to up the Dukes lead to 10-1.
ODU threatened again in with one out in the seventh on consecutive hits by Kenny Stoneback, Brandon Shelton and Brent Frazier to load the bases, but Luke Munson came on in relief to stop the rally.
Kenny Stoneback led ODU with three hits and an RBI.
ODU's Brent Frazier (Fairfax Station, VA.), Ben Tomchick (Virginia Beach, VA.) and Phil McCarthy (Chesapeake, VA.) were named to the CAA All-Tournament squad. Johnny Bladel was named the Tournaments Most outstanding player. He was 8-12 and scored six runs in the tournament for JMU.
JMU 060 010 300=10-13-0ODU010 000 000= 1-7-0
ODU Battery: Singleton, Ali (4), Hamaucher(8), Wisniewski(9) and HernandezJMU Battery: Valadja, Futter(7), Munson(7), Brown(9) and Lowery
WP: Valadja (7-3) LP: Singleton (2-3)HR-JMU-Bladel (4), Herbek (15)