RADFORD, Va. –  Kyle Merkle and Chris Veach both hit homers but the Blue Hose came out on the wrong end of a 12-5 decision on Saturday afternoon against Radford at Sherman Carter Memorial Stadium. Ryan Ouzts and Veach paced the Blue Hose offense with a pair of hits apiece in the loss. 

FINAL SCORE: Radford 12, Presbyterian 5
LOCATION: Sherman Carter Memorial Stadium (Radford, Va.)
RECORDS: Presbyterian (2-7, 1-2 Big South) | Radford (9-8, 4-4 Big South)
W: Ryan Bywaters (2-2) | L: Clark Dearman (0-2)

NOTABLES
- The Blue Hose were led offensively by Ouzts and Veach both picking up two hits with Veach connecting on his first collegiate home run in the fifth inning.
- In the first inning, Kyle Merkle got the Blue Hose on the board with his first home run of 2021 and his third career long ball. 
- Brandon Williams went a season-high 3.1 innings in relief on Saturday
- With his ninth-inning base hit, Eric Toth now has reached base safely in all nine games on the season to lead the Blue Hose.
- Veach continued his hit streak as his two-hit day now has his hit streak to eight in a row. Ouzts extended his hit streak to five consecutive games on Saturday. 
- Ouzts leads the team with five multi-hit games on the season.

HOW IT HAPPENED
- PC opened the scoring in its half of the third with a solo homer from Merkle to take the early 1-0 lead.
- Radford answered in its half of the third as the Highlanders scored five runs to take the lead by the count of 5-1.
- In the fifth, Presbyterian connected on its second homer of the afternoon as Veach connected on his first collegiate homer to cut the Highlander lead to 5-2.
- The hosts extended their lead to 7-2 in the sixth off of a two-run single.
- The Blue Hose stormed back in the seventh as Klein started it with an RBI single to cut the Radford lead to 7-3. Ryan Ouzts followed that up with an RBI single of his own to make it 7-4 Highlanders.
- PC scored its third run of the frame with a Radford wild pitch allowing Klein to score and make it 7-5 after seven.
- The hosts pushed a pair of runs across in their half of the seventh with a pair of sac flies to take a 9-5 lead to the eighth inning. 
- Radford added three more runs in the eighth to push the advantage out to 12-5 and the Highlanders would go onto split the abbreviated series with PC. 

UP NEXT
- The Blue Hose are next in action on Tuesday, March 23rd at 4 p.m. when PC heads to USC Upstate for a Big South matchup with the Spartans.