Baseball Unable to Complete Sweep of Radford
2/26/2012 10:49:00 PM | Baseball
STATESBORO, Ga. - The Georgia Southern Baseball team was unable to come from behind for a third straight time and fell 5-4 to the Radford Highlanders. The Eagles, who had won the previous two games in the series, dropped just their second contest of the year in the conclusion of the three-game series at J.I. Clements Stadium Sunday.
Radford (2-5) got ahead early, as they have done in all but one game this year, and picked up their second win against a Southern Conference team behind a seven-inning outing from Keith Fritz (1-1). The Highlanders took advantage of four walks from Georgia Southern starter Kyle Rowe (Valdosta, Ga.) (1-1) and converted three to runs in the first four innings.
The Eagles got a run on the board in the fourth inning on a walk of Eric Phillips (Carrollton, Ga.) and a ground out by Chase Griffin (Leesburg, Ga.) and would score again in the seventh. GSU went to the ninth trailing 5-4 after a two-run homer from T.D. Davis (Evans, Ga.) in the eighth inning, but a run by Radford in the top half of the inning proved to be decisive. A walk of Matt Hillsinger, who finished the series with seven hits in 11 at-bats, came around to score on a base hit up the middle from Ryan Burgess.
Fritz provided a lift to the Highlanders' pitching staff, who suffered back-to-back blown saves in the doubleheader on Saturday, and gave up just two runs on five hits. The bullpen was shaky at times, but never surrendered the lead in the third one-run game of the series. Jeff Maxwell (S, 1), who allowed a two-out double to Phillips, stranded two runners in the ninth inning to earn his first save of the season.
Justin Hess (Panama City, Fla.) helped save the Eagles' bullpen, who had already used seven pitchers in the series, with four strong innings in relief of Rowe. Hess held Radford to just one hit, struck out three and walked one. His one walk came around to score, the only run he allowed in 58 pitches.
Georgia Southern did out hit Radford for the first time in the series but left 10 runners stranded on the bases. Davis, who had just one hit in eight at-bats in the previous two games, went three-for-four in the contest and notched his first Georgia Southern homer off the batters' eye in center field. Stryker Brown (Dalton, Ga.) also had multiple hits on the day and picked up singles in his two at-bats after pinch hitting in the seventh inning.
Georgia Southern returns to Clements Stadium Tuesday for a 6 p.m. contest against Mercer. The contest is the first of five the Eagles will play next week.
All games can be heard on Boomer 103.7 FM and inside the stadium on 88.1 FM. Audio for all games is also available on the web and subscription video is available for all home games at GeorgiaSouthernEagles.com/Eaglevision.
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