Kokomo, Ind. - The Manchester University Baseball team traveled down to Kokomo, Ind. this past weekend to compete in the HCAC Tournament.

The Spartans competed in three games and walked away with three wins and another HCAC title.

The Spartans took on MSJ on Thursday and were tested early on, going all the way to the 10th inning and even being down three runs in the 10th, however the Spartans rallied back and would score four to take their first game of the tournament and move to the winners bracket after a 6-5 win.

In game two, the Spartans took on long-time rival, Anderson University. The offense did not let up, putting up 16 runs on 20 hits and taking down the #2 seeded Ravens to advance to the championship game. 

After awaiting the winner of Anderson and Transylvania, Manchester got their Championship opponent when Transylvania defeated AU and advanced to the championship.

The Spartans had Jared Holley (Wabash, Ind., Wabash) on the bump, and Holley was dominant in eight innings of showing, forcing a lot of the Pioneer's bats to be hit into ground outs and fly outs. Mitchell Cobb (Pendleton, Ind., Pendleton Heights) got the Spartans on the board first after a ground out in the second inning brought in Cam Bortone (South Bend, Ind,, Mishawaka Marian) for the first run of the game. Transylvania answered back in the third to tie the game at 1-1. Manchester would go onto to score in the 4th and the 5th with Alex Westfield (Rockledge, FL, Viera) being brought in after a pitcher balk, and Max Horner (Goshen, Ind., Northridge) with the first of his 4 RBIs after a double drove in Michael Dierckman. 

Holley continued to impress on the bump, however after a few scoreless innings, the Pioneers scored two runs to tie the game in the 8th.

With a tie game in the 9th, Manchester's clutch genes came out again. With the bases being loaded with only one out, Gavin Gleason (Brookston, Ind., Delphi Community) drew a walk to bring in pinch runner Clay Pickett (Fort Wayne, Ind., Blackhawk Christian) to take the lead and right after Max Horner gave the Spartans some insurance with a bases clearing triple to extend the lead to 7-3.

Brett Wathen (Ossian, Ind., Norwell) came into the game to put the Pioneers away and three ground outs in a row did just that as the Spartans claimed their first HCAC Tournament title since 2013.

Max Horner was named the HCAC Tournament MVP and Rocco Hanes (Ossian, Ind., Norwell) and Joel Kennedy (Mooreland, Ind., Monroe Central) were named to the HCAC All Tournament team after their performances over the weekend.

The Spartans received an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament with the HCAC title and will find out on Monday who they will play in their Regional match up.