CHARLESTON – Radford evened the weekend series with Charleston Southern on Saturday afternoon with a 7-4 victory.
Head Coach
Marc MacMillan said, "Congrats to Radford. They out-pitched, out-hit and out-defended us. Seven of their eleven hits and five of their runs came with two outs. Coaches and players know our formula that puts us in the best position to have success and getting off the field with two outs is one of them. The formula does not require us to be perfect, but we certainly can't get outplayed in all areas.
Radford jumped out to an early lead in the game, scoring three in the first inning and tallying a run in the second and third as well. Charleston Southern scored in the bottom of the first on a
Cade Conway single that brought
Chandler Tuupo home. After three, the visitors lead 5-1.
The Buccaneers then started to cut into their deficit in the middle three innings.
Sam Low drilled a single to the third baseman that scored
Dakota Miller in the 4
th. In the 5
th,
Evann Long had a leadoff single and Tuupo moved him to third on a double. During Conway's at bat, a wild pitch brought Long home and Tuupo moved the final 90 feet needed on an RBI groundout by Conway to cut Radford's advantage to 5-4.
In the 7
th, the Highlanders responded and pushed their lead up to 7-4 doing all the damage with two outs. Radford's Breckin Nace battled through a nine-pitch at bat to send a ball over the right field fence for a solo home run. They added their other run on an RBI single with two runners on.
The Buccaneers put runners on in the 7
th and 9
th innings but were unable to bring them home either time for the final score to stand at 7-4.
Charleston Southern finished with nine hits on the day. Tuupo led the team with three hits including a pair of doubles in the contest while Conway added two hits. Long,
Lucas Pringle, Low and
JJ Rivera each had one on the day.
Nick Timpanelli started on the mound for the Bucs and tied his career-long in innings pitched with 6.0 and set a career-high in strikeouts with nine. He allowed four earned runs and saw five Highlanders score.
Parks Ledwell threw the next inning, giving up two runs in his inning of work.
Tyler Henshaw was the third pitcher used by the Bucs and tossed for 1.1 and collected a pair of Ks to go with just one hit allowed.
Dylan Matsuoka threw the final .2 innings allowing one hit.
Charleston Southern and Radford will return to Nielsen Field at CSU Ballpark on Sunday for the weekend finale. The first pitch is scheduled for 1:00 p.m. with the action live on ESPN+. The Buccaneers now sit in a tie with UNC Asheville for 4
th in the league standings at 10-10. CSU holds the tiebreaker over the Bulldogs as the Bucs took the weekend series earlier this season for that fourth and final spot in the Conference Tournament later this month.
