#9 Baseball Finishes off Sweep of Pfeiffer

Brad Pennington, courtesy Carl Lewis
Brad Pennington, courtesy Carl Lewis

MISENHEIMER, N.C. - The #9 NC Wesleyan College baseball team rolled to another conference sweep by edging Pfeiffer University 14-12 in game one and 5-3 in game two on the road on Sunday.

With their 6th straight win, the Bishops improve to 23-3 on the season and 11-1 in the East Division as they now lead 2nd place Peace by 3.5 games. Pfeiffer falls to 7-9 overall and 3-5 in Division.

 GAME 2: NCWC 5, PU 3

Senior reliever Kevin Williams was the star of game two as he came into the matchup in the first inning to replace starter Payne Stolsworth, who had given up two early runs. Williams would then go on to hold the Falcons to just one run on 5 hits over the final 8 and 1/3 innings while striking out a career-high 10 batters to get the win improving to 3-1 on the season and a 2.53 ERA.

Wesleyan's 2-run deficit did not last, however, as they came back in the top of the 2nd inning to score 3 runs on a two-run single from junior DH Jackson Murray and an RBI single from senior RF Alec Titmus.

An RBI double from senior catcher Brad Pennington in the third inning then made it 4-2 before Davie Morgan's RBI groundout put Wesleyan in front 5-2 before Williams took over from there shutting out the Falcons over the final four frames. Titmus and freshman 1B Jackson Hobbs led the Bishops with two-hit games as well.

GAME 1: NCWC 14, PU 12

A wild first game of the doubleheader ensued on Sunday with the teams combining for 26 runs, 27 hits and 10 total pitchers used in the near 4-hour affair.

An RBI double from Pennington and a RBI single from 2B Davie Morgan gave NCWC the early 2-0 lead before Pfeiffer would score 6 runs over the next 3 innings. They scored 5 of them off freshman starter Cullen Davis over two innings before reliever CJ DiBenedetto entered in the third and calmed things down some holding PU to just one run over the next 5 innings to get the win improving to 4-1.

Trailing 6-2 in the 4th, Wesleyan began their comeback scoring on a Nate Hibbs sac fly in the 4th, a Titmus 3-run homer in the 5th, and then a RBI single from OF Zach Lyon in the 6th as well as another sac fly from Murray as the Bishops would take a 10-6 lead after 6 innings. Hibbs' RBI double in the 7th was then followed by Pennington's two-run homer to put the Bishops up 13-6 in the 7th.

Unfortunately, Pfeiffer would then begin a rally of their own scoring 6 runs off the Bishop bullpen over the 7th and 8th innings before rookie closer Danny Thompson came on in the 8th and 9th to keep the Falcons at bay and pitch a scoreless ninth to nail down the win.  

Pennington led the Bishop sin game two recording 4 hits and 4 runs scored including his 3rd home run. He is now hitting .343 with 28 RBIs. CF Drifton Padgett also recorded 3 hits in the win.

The Bishops will next head to Virginia to battle CNU on Wednesday at 3 PM.