Annually, surrounding teams from the Philadelphia area come together to play the Liberty Bell Classic at Veterans Stadium. This marks the 11th year that the tournament has taken place and this year the Temple Owls are having a good showing in this eight-team tournament.
The Owls will play in their third consecutive Liberty Bell Classic final. They will face Delaware after a 3-0 win over Drexel on Tuesday at Veterans Stadium.
“It feels good to come out here. It’s nice the Phillies allowed us to use their facilities, and even better when you win, to be one of the better teams in the Liberty Bell,” senior outfielder Joe Lyall said. “It’s really prestigious to win the Liberty Bell.”
Lyall was a part of the last Temple team to win this tournament in 2000 and last year’s runner up team that lost to Delaware in the finals. He has been a reason why the Temple team has done well in this year’s Classic.
Lyall has been Temple’s big hitter so far this season, coming off an amazing weekend series at Xavier in which the Owls were absolutely pummeled in a three game series sweep by the Musketeers. During that weekend series he went 4-for-10 with five RBIs. In the semi-final game against Drexel he continued the tear, going 4-for-5 with two RBIs for the Owls.
“You don’t feel good when you do good and your team losses,” said Lyall of the weekend series against Xavier. “It is a lot better feeling when you know you contributed to a winning cause, and helped the team win.”
“He has been super, not only on the defensive end, he has been doing it all, he is an outstanding senior,” Temple coach Skip Wilson said. “The better situation the better he plays.”
Matt Sitkoffcan be reached at phil14367@aol.com
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