CARY, N.C. – There is no slowing down the Rollins Tars right now. Rollins scored five runs in the first inning and pulled away for a 17-4 win over Millersville in the second round of the NCAA Championship Monday night.
 
Rollins, which won three games in Cary in 2022, looks plenty comfortable at the plate in its second-straight trip to the NCAA Championship, scoring seven or more runs in five-straight games and seven times in the last eight. The early offense forced Millersville to use three pitchers before the end of the second inning. The Tars hit three home runs, totaled 14 hits, and drew eight walks, scoring the most runs by any Millersville opponent since 2016. Rollins has now hit 14 home runs in six NCAA Tournament games and have won their first two games in Cary by a combined score of 24-5.

"Going down 7-0 to start is not the way we drew it up," said Millersville head coach Jon Shehan. "Struggled from then on…We just flat out got beat tonight. Once you get down seven you have to start making pitching decisions that affect the next two or three days, and it just rolled from there." 
 
Millersville utilized seven pitchers in the game, four of which made their 2023 postseason debut.  
 
Millersville's best opportunity to make it game came up short in the third inning. With the Marauders trailing 7-0, Chase Simmons led off with a solo homer. Jimmy Losh and Thomas Caufield singled, and Sam Morris plated Losh with a single to right-center. Rollins starter Edward Berry plunk Keegan Soltis, loading the bases with one out. Justin Taylor hit a grounder to second base and drove in Caufield with the fielder's choice. With two on and two out, Matthew Williams worked a full count, but Berry won the battle, getting Williams swinging to end the threat.
 
In the fifth, Millersville put one more on the board with another RBI single from Justin Taylor and very nearly closed the gap to one run when Williams narrowly missed a three-run home run, flying out one step short of the wall in left-center. Rollins' first batter of the bottom of the fifth did not miss, however. Mason Williams got the run back for the Tars with 415-foot blast to right-center. He smacked his second home run of the game in the sixth. Rollins scored at least one run in seven of its eight innings.
 
"Going down 7-0 is tough," said Simmons. "The next inning, leading off, I'm trying to start the inning. It lit a spark, and we got two more, but it came up short. It was tough. We kept chipping away getting one run at a time, but then it would get taken away. That's baseball. It happens."


 
Millersville totaled five hits, and Justin Taylor drove in two runs, giving him a hit and RBI in each of the last six games.
 
The early deficit proved too much to overcome for the Marauders. The Tars' five-run first was just the third time all season that a team scored five runs in an inning against Millersville. Six of the first seven hitters reached on four singles and two walks. An uncharacteristic defensive miscue in a run down that could have ended the inning and stopped the scoring at three and a wild pitch helped Rollins pile on.
 
"(Starting pitcher Matt Seibert) just had a bad night," said Shehan. "He couldn't locate his change-up, which is his bread-and-butter. The goal was to pitch in, work off of that and throw the change-up. Rollins had some good at-bats early, and we made a bunch of mistakes that opened the door. We are way better than that."
 
Edwards gave the Tars five innings before handing the ball to Ryan Murphy who went two innings and extended his streak of scoreless innings to 17 1/3. Rollins' bullpen kept the Marauders hitless over the final four innings.
 
"We'll get right back on the horse," said Justin Taylor. "Coach has preached to us that when we get punched in the mouth we punch right back. So, hopefully, we'll come out the next game and get it back."
 
 Millersville, with the loss, drops into an elimination game against Cal State San Bernardino on Wednesday, June 7 at 1:30 p.m.