Piedmont Rallies to Edge Bishops on Senior Day

courtesy of Tim Donovan
courtesy of Tim Donovan

ROCKY MOUNT, N.C. - The NC Wesleyan College baseball team dropped their senior day game 9-7 to conference leader Piedmont College (Ga.) at home on Sunday afternoon to drop the rain-shortened series.

After Piedmont got out to a quick 1-0 lead in the second, the Bishops came back to score 6 runs in the bottom of the third. Senior CF Cedrick Kornegay got the Bishops on the board with a two-RBI single while fellow senior Trey Croom followed with his own RBI single to mkae it 3-1. Senior catcher Brandon Wheat then made it 4-1 with a sacrifice fly before an RBI single from fellow senior LF Logan Andrews made it 5-1. A fielder's choice RBI from freshman 3B Andrew Nichols made it 6-1.

Unfortunately for the Bishops, Piedmont would not go away as they continued to chip away at Wesleyan pitching all afternoon tying it in the 5th before taking the lead in the 6th off reliever Kevin Williams. Piedmont then added two big insurance runs off junior reliever Noah Shrock in the 8th to lead 9-6. Wesleyan would get one back on a wild pitch in the 9th but would fall short 9-7.

Sophomore starter Drew Tubb lasted 4+ innings allowing 5 runs (4 earned) on 6 hits with 2 walks and 2 strikeouts. Williams struck out three over 3 innings while Shrock also K'd three over two frames.

Offensively, Wesleyan was led by two-hit games from jnior 2B Brad Pennington, Croom, Andrews and Nichols while senior DH Nate Gardner, junior SS Alec Titmus and Kornegay also connected for hits as the Bishops fell to 21-12 overalll and 12-7 in conference. Piedmont improves to 26-7 and 16-3.

The Bishops finish out their home schedule with a non-conference game vs. Pfeiffer University on Tuesday at 3:00 PM.