Eagles Drop Series Opener to Troy, 2-1

Friday, March 18

7 p.m.

Georgia Southern University

12-6, 3-1

Troy

11-8, 2-2

Troy

Georgia Southern

3/18/2016 10:30:00 PM | Baseball

Box Score

Hunter Thomas’ first inning home run not enough on Friday night

STATESBORO, GA. – Georgia Southern's five-game win streak came to an end Friday night as Troy stymied the Eagles for a 2-1 victory. Hunter Thomas' first inning home run gave the Eagles an early lead, but tallies in the third and sixth innings gave Troy the win. The series continues on Saturday night at 7 p.m.

QUOTABLES
HEAD COACH RODNEY HENNON
"Typically on Friday night you're going to run into a quality pitcher and tonight you had a pair of guys throwing well like Bennett and Challenger. You can't afford to make too many mistakes in a game like that and we made a few too many that hurt us. It is a fine line and it hurt us tonight. They got some great two out hits to manufacture some runs, but we hurt ourselves a little bit with free bases and some base running mistakes. Against a good pitcher you can't afford to do that and expect to come out on top, give Troy credit, they got the big two out hit and got some big pitches from Childress to finish it off."

PITCHERS OF RECORD
WIN – Grant Bennett (3-0)
LOSS – Evan Challenger (3-2)
SAVE – Corey Childress (4)

PLAYERS OF THE GAME
Connor Simmons & Landon Hughes
The Georgia Southern Bullpen delivered three innings of no-hit relief to keep the margin at just one run. Connor Simmons worked 1.1 innings and struck out all four batters he faced. Landon Hughes struck out four of six batters he faced as he finished the game off.

CRUCIAL MOMENTS
BOTTOM 1st – Hunter Thomas hit his second home run of the season with a two-out job to the gap in right. The redshirt senior hit his 13th career home run to give the Eagles an early 1-0 lead.
TOP 3rd – A leadoff single by Brandon Lockridge opened the door for the Trojans to tie the game at 1-1. A walk and an Eagle error loaded the bases for Trevor Davis who cracked a sacrifice fly to tie the game. Evan Challenger, however, settled down and retired the side with a strikeout and fly ball.
TOP 6th – Joey Denison delivered a two-out double which was followed by an RBI bleeder into the gap in left by Shaw Pinnell. The run gave the visitors their first lead of the game, 2-1.
BOTTOM 9th – Ryan Cleveland cranked a leadoff double to the gap in left, but he was stranded aboard to end the game when the Eagles were unable to move him along.

NOTES
- Evan McDonald went 1-for-4 to extend his hit streak to eight-straight games. He is 13-for-30 over that stretch.
- The loss ends Georgia Southern's five-game win streak. It was the second five-game win streak this season for the Eagles.
- Evan Challenger worked six innings and gave up just one earned run, but took the loss after the offense was unable to produce more than one run. He worked around a season-high seven hits and struck out two.
- Troy's Grant Bennett worked eight innings to improve to 3-0 on the year on the mound. He held the Eagles to five hits and the one run while striking out six.

NEXT GAME
The three-game series continues on Saturday night at 7 p.m. With inclement weather a possibility, keep an eye on GSEagles.com and Georgia Southern's social media channels for any schedule changes.

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