CONWAY, S.C. - The Georgia Southern baseball team split a doubleheader with the 17th-ranked Coastal Carolina Chanticleers on Friday, April 7, at Springs Brooks Stadium in Conway, South Carolina. With the split, the Chanticleers took the series over the Eagles.
GAME ONE
Coastal Carolina (19-9, 8-3 SBC) got on the board first with a two-run homer in the bottom of the first inning, but Georgia Southern (15-16, 6-5 SBC) cut the lead in half with
Corey Dowdell's RBI-double to right center, scoring
Luke Hatcher. The Chanticleers would double its own score in the bottom of the fifth inning, however, when a two-RBI single would set CCU up with a 4-1 lead. The Eagles took the lead with a productive top of the sixth inning, starting witha
Noah Ledford home run to left center, followed up with a
JD Kaiser RBI-single that plated Dowdell.
Jesse Sherrill's two-RBI single to right field scored Kaiser and
Blake Evans, giving GS a 5-4 lead.
In the top of the seventh inning,
Noah Ledford knocked his 10th home run of the season, which etched him in the record books as one of two players to have double-digit home runs in four seasons with the Eagles, the first being Todd Greene. To add another insurance run,
Cameron Crosby recorded his first Division I HR in the top of the eighth inning, putting the Eagles up 7-4. Coastal Carolina would launch a solo homer to right field in the bottom of the eighth inning, but could not plate another run, setting GS up with the 7-5 victory.
GAME TWO
The Chanticleers (20-9, 9-3 SBC) wasted no time getting on the board with a three-run homer to right field, taking a 3-0 lead after just one frame. In the top of the second inning, the Eagles (15-17, 6-6 SBC) would plate Dowdell thanks to
Kyler Hultgren's RBI-single and in the top of the third inning,
Jarrett Brown would homer down the left field line to narrow the gap at 3-2. The Chanticleers would score six runs in the bottom of the third inning to put some distance between them and the Eagles, and GS would slowly start to chip away at the lead by scoring a run in all but the ninth inning, but CCU would respond with two run innings in the bottom of the sixth and seventh innings. The Eagles would plate multiple runs in the top of the eighth inning with an RBI-single by Dowdell and a RBI-double by Hultgren, but could not make up the deficit and fell 13-8 in the rubber match.
UP NEXT
The Eagles will finish off the last of five-straight road games with a game at Jacksonville University on Tuesday, April 11. First pitch from John Sessions Stadium is set for 6 p.m.