Albany State broke through with a run in the fourth on T. Jordan’s sacrifice fly that plated N. Lloyd for a. 1-0 lead. Lloyd reached earlier on a lead-off walk before moving to third on a pair of wild pitches.

Lloyd pushed the margin to 2-0 when he doubled in L. Ross with nobody out in the fifth. M. Bell’s sacrifice fly pushed across N. Hernandez for a 3-0 advantage. Hernandez had been hit by a pitch just moments before. 

Kentucky State got on the board in the eighth. Aram Kumar walked and swiped second base. With one down, Kelton Saylor singled up the middle to make it 3-1. However, the Golden Rams got the run back in their at bat. Zane Ross singled and eventually scored on an error.

Down to their last at bat, the Thorobreds managed to score three runs while knotting the game at 4-4. Byron Famble opened the stanza with a single before hustling to third on a double from Daniel Moore. Kumar’s base hit plated Moore. Two batters later, Saylor singled in a run. With one down, a fielding error loaded the bases. Antonio Chambers ripped a base hit through the left side, sending the tying run via Kumar across the plate.

The score remained tied until Thompson belted a one-out solo home run in the 12th.

Michael Pedraza worked the final four innings to get the win. He registered three consecutive outs to close out the game, including the last via a strikeout.

At the plate, Chambers, Famble, Saylor and Thompson had two hits apiece. Saylor drove in two while Kumar crossed home twice.

Brady Davis tossed seven strong innings for Albany State. He struck out four and did not allow a run. Elijah Dennis worked 4.1 innings and gave up four runs on six hits. He struck out four but was saddled with the loss.    

Zane Ross picked up a team-best two hits and scored a pair of times for the Golden Rams. 

The Black College World Series is a postseason event to determine HBCU baseball national champion on the field, while emphasizing the significance of collegiate baseball’s unique regular season where every game counts. 

Black College Championships, along with its selection committee will announce the field of eight-teams in all for the 2022 Black College Baseball Tournament. The field for the world series includes automatic bids via conference championships and at-large entrants and at-large invites. The tournament is a double-elimination two-bracket format. 

Each of the teams in the two-brackets, the winners of those games play each other, while the losers play an elimination game. 

The tournament games pits NCAA DII bracket champion and the NAIA bracket champion as the final two teams left standing advance to a winner take all championship game to determine the national champion.

BOX SCORE