LISLE, ILL.—The No. 3 seed Illinois Institute of Technology baseball team squared-off against No. 2 seed Benedictine University (Ill.) in the opening day of the 2021 NACC Baseball South Division Tournament in Lisle, Illinois on Friday. The Scarlet Hawks held onto an 8-7 decision over the Eagles, and will face top-seed Aurora University tomorrow, Saturday, May 15 at 2:00 p.m. in Lisle. The Aurora Spartans defeated No. 4 seed Rockford University 3-1 in the other NACC South Division Tournament game today. 

This mark's Illinois Tech's first ever NACC Baseball Tournament victory.

Rockford and Benedictine (Ill.) will compete in an elimination game tomorrow at 10 a.m. in Lisle, Illinois.

Illinois Tech improves to 19-8 on the season while Benedictine (Ill.) falls to 27-12.

Illinois Tech 8, Benedictine 7

The game was tied on two occasions at 4-4 in the fifth inning, and 6-6 in the sixth inning. Connor Blake gave the Scarlet Hawks a 7-6 lead with an eighth-inning single that scored Jacob Sorenson (single). Blake later scored from third base off Nick Bledsoe's sacrifice fly to make the score 8-6.

The Eagles narrowed their deficit to 8-7 in the bottom of the ninth off Brendan Norberg's groundout that scored Cameron Falk (single), but couldn't produce more runs as Illinois Tech held on for the win.

Brandon Bennitt went 3-for-4 at the plate with two RBI for the Scarlet Hawks. Blake registered a 2-for-4 outing with two runs scored and two RBI while Sorenson tallied a 2-for-3 day with a pair of runs scored.

Austin Richardson pitched the first 6.0 innings before Roberto Carselle secured the winning decision over the final 3.0 frames. They combined to give up 11 hits, and seven runs along with six strikeouts. Justin Sosa, Dan Dombrowski and Ryan Litavecz each saw pitching time for Benedictine (Ill.).