Brady Gulakowski Leads Baseball To Victory As He Returns Following ACL Surgery

Since returning from a torn ACL, junior Brady Gulakowski has struggled to make an impact for Liberty baseball this season, batting at an .083 average. That is, until Tuesday night. 

As the sun set over Liberty’s baseball stadium, Gulakowski finally found his feet, leading Liberty to a 5-1 win over former Big South rival Radford for Liberty’s third win of the season.  

In Gulakowski’s first at bat of the day, he squared up against Radford pitcher Ryan Bywaters and smacked a two-run home run to right field, giving Liberty a 2-0 lead in the bottom of the second inning. Gulakowski later followed his home run with an RBI-double in the bottom of the eighth inning to put away this game for the Flames. 

“(It was) a good confidence booster for sure,” Gulakowski said.

Prior to the game against Radford, Gulakowski knew he needed to make some changes in his game to try to recreate his success from last season as he recovered from his injury. Head Coach Scott Jackson spoke on the matter, praising him for being diligent to use the day off in between games to watch game tapes and make the proper changes to correct his game.

“You’re talking about (him) watching video in the office at 2 p.m. on a Monday – and a little bit over 24 hours later, for him to put that to good use and to be able to execute some things that he wants to do in the game,” Jackson said. “That’s a testament to Brady. That’s hard to do.”  

In the top of the third Radford batter Dac Archer got an RBI single which cut Liberty’s lead to one run. The fourth inning, however, brought Liberty its toughest challenge of the day. 

Radford had loaded the bases with only one out, but the Flames ran into some luck as a Radford batter grounded the ball near second. Second baseman Josh Haney tagged the runner heading toward second and threw the ball to first, beating the runner to make a crucial double play to end the top of the fourth.

With Liberty’s defense standing strong, the Flames weren’t finished scoring for the day. When Jaylen Guy hit a bloop single to shallow right center field, Logan Mathieu and Gulakowski each reached home plate for a run. Guy was later caught trying to tag up second, which ended the inning, bringing the scoring to an end. 

Before the weekend’s series against the University of Central Florida March 5-7, Jackson knew there were areas the Flames still needed to improve and errors they made against Radford they need to fix.

“We knew what we were up against and thankfully our guys played well enough to win,” Jackson said. “That being said, we got to do some better things when we got runners. We almost stranded a couple leadoff doubles tonight, and for us to be able to take advantage of scoring opportunities when we have them is something that is critical for us right now. That is something we will certainly talk about and make a point of emphasis moving in here to a weekend against a top-25 team (University of Central Florida).”

The team swept UCF to improve to 6-5 on the season. The team will next compete against UNC March 9. 

Kevin Gora is a Sports Reporter. Follow him on Twitter at @kevgora.