GREENSBORO, April 17, 2008 – North Carolina A&T head baseball coach Keith Shumate is looking for any combination, any nine-man lineup that will ignite his offense going into the stretch run of the season.
Six innings into Wednesday night’s ball game against Gardner-Webb at War Memorial Stadium, it seemed not even Shumate’s latest version of a starting lineup was going to get it done. Then all of sudden an old source of offense – Jeremy Jones – started a seventh inning rally. Jones was assisted by offense produced from the Aggies bench. And with that, the Aggies rallied from a four-run deficit to defeat the Bulldogs 6-4.
The Aggies, who were one-hit by Campbell Tuesday night, had just two hits going into the seventh and trailed 4-0. But Jones opened the inning with his eighth double of the season. C.J. Beatty followed by reaching first in a scary manner. Gardner-Webb starter Ben Campell’s 1-0 pitch ricocheted off of Beatty’s head, leaving the sophomore outfielder dazed for a few moments.
Beatty stayed in the game, and do did the Aggies and A&T went on to win the game 6-4 at War Memorial Stadium. I arrived right about the time the seventh inning rally got rolling. Another good example of the GREENSBOROSports.com good luck charm in effect. CJ Beatty was impressive for the Aggies and so were Joe Wade, Joe McIntyre, Nelson Santos, and our man from Guilford County Nick Rogers. Rogers out of Northwest Guilford High School was 2-4 with an RBI for NC A&T. The Aggies improve to (15-23) with the victory and they will be on the road at Longwood up in Farmville, Virginia for three games this weekend.
GO AGGIES!!!!!(Parts of this blog material came from the University sports web site.)