CLINTON, S.C. – The Presbyterian College baseball team dropped the first game of its three-game home Big South Conference series to the visiting Charleston Southern Buccaneers on Friday afternoon, 4-2.
PC moves to 14-29-1 and 6-16 in the Big South while Charleston Southern improves to 24-20 and 7-11 in League action. The two teams meet on Saturday in the second game at 3 p.m.
Charleston Southern scored all of its runs in the first three innings and held on as PC plated two runs in the eighth.
Chandler Knox (Columbia, S.C.) produced a solid outing with a six-inning, four-run (two earned) performance but took the loss to move to 6-6. Tory Schroff went 7.2 innings for the Buccaneers, striking out five to improve to 5-2. Will Hartsell picked up his first save of the season with 1.1 innings of scoreless relief.
Brandon Paul (Augusta, Ga.) led PC with a 3-for-4 day at the plate. Jay Lizanich (Greer, S.C.) drove in the team's lone run. Zack Hagaman picked up only one hit for the Buccaneers but tallied a game-high three RBI.
Down 4-0 heading into the bottom of the eighth, PC mounted a comeback bid in the bottom of the frame. Paul led off with a full-count infield base hit before Midkiff beat out an infield single one out later. Facing two outs, Lizanich singled to the outfield and took second on the third as Paul scored and Midkiff took third. Pinch hitter Tyler Weyenberg (Marietta, Ga.) hit a 1-2 pitch to second that caused an error, leaving pinch runner Robert Moss (Jupiter, Fla.) room to score and make it a 4-2 game.
Unfortunately for the Blue Hose, one more out ended the inning and, despite Paul singling again in the bottom of the ninth, the Buccaneers took the win.
Charleston Southern opened the scoring in the first, getting on the scoreboard with two straight doubles from Bobby Ison and Andrew Widell. A Hagaman sacrifice fly to right field plated Widell for a 2-0 lead.
Two errors in the third helped put two aboard for Hagaman, who knocked a double to right center to score a pair and extend the visitors' lead to 4-0.
Knox held the Buccaneers scoreless after that, combined with scoreless innings from Paul Sanders (St. Simons Island, Ga.), Michael Trebendis (Fayetteville, Ga.) and Brian Kehner (Marietta, Ga.). Knox escaped a bases-loaded jam in the sixth by inducing a groundout to second to keep the gap at four.
------------------------------------------------------------
Charleston Southern. 202 000 000 - 4 9 1 (24-20, 7-11 BSC)
Presbyterian College 000 000 020 - 2 6 2 (14-29-1, 6-16 BSC)
------------------------------------------------------------
Pitchers: Charleston Southern - SCHROFF, Tory; HARTSELL, Will(8) and REMICK, Sam.
Presbyterian College - KNOX, Chandler; SANDERS, Paul(7); TREBENDIS, Michael(8); KEHNER, Brian(9)
and McRAE, Cam.
Win-SCHROFF, Tory(5-2) Save-HARTSELL, Will(1) Loss-KNOX, Chandler(6-6) T-2:14 A-177
Weather: High 60s, occasional clouds
