Panthers Baseball Drop Twinbill at Coastal Carolina

The High Point University baseball team dropped the second game of the double header on Saturday at Coastal Carolina, taking a 17-7 loss in the final game of the Big South Conference series. Freshman Ryne Rush went 3-5 with his first career homerun in the game.

Coastal Carolina scored six runs in the fourth inning including a basehit off the foot of HPU starter Jacob Newberry that knocked him out of the game. Daniel Bowman tripled for the second time in the series, driving in two runs. Bowman came in to score on a sacrifice fly to give the Chants a 4-0 lead. After a single by Rich Witten, first baseman Sloan Gilliam came to the plate. Gilliam lined a ball right back at Newberry that bounced off the pitcher’s leg and forced him out of the game.

Jared Avidon came out of the bullpen and gave up two straight doubles and the Chanticleers extended the lead to 7-0.

Newberry took the loss, dropping to 3-4. He pitched just 2-2/3 innings, allowing six runs, one earned, on seven hits with one strikeout.

Rush accounted for HPU’s first two runs in the game. He hit his first career homerun in the fourth inning, a two-run shot to leftfield. Rush also added a double in the eighth inning.

The Chanticleers added one run in the fifth inning and six in the sixth. In the seventh inning Coastal Carolina added three runs.

Freshman Austin Wallace got the win for Coastal Carolina. He went six innings, allowing two runs on three hits with a career-high seven strikeouts. Wallace is 3-0 on the season.

Junior Zach Tessier doubled in a run in the seventh inning, scoring Josh Spano all the way from first.

Spano scored again in the ninth inning. He led off the inning with a double and came around to score on a double off the bat of Stephen Wytaz. Wytiaz scored HPU’s fifth run of the night on a groundout by John Siciliano. Rush continued his hot hitting with a two-run double in the ninth inning, making the final score 17-7.

Spano went 3-5 with two runs scored in the game. Rush finished the game 3-5 with four RBI and a run scored.

The Panthers fall to 23-20 on the season with a 8-7 mark in league play. High Point will play at Appalachian State on Tuesday at 6 p.m. The first meeting between HPU and the Mountaineers was rained out at Williard Stadium on March 20.