HPU Baseball – Andre Scrubb Goes The Distance In 8-3 win Over No. 4 Liberty

• High Point opened the Big South Baseball Championship with an 8-3 win over No. 4-seed Liberty in Boiling Springs, N.C.
• Sophomore Andre Scrubb recorded his first collegiate complete game and struck out a career-high 10 for HPU.
• Four Panthers recorded multiple hits, including senior Brady Williamson who went 4-5 with a home run out of the leadoff spot.

BOILING SPRINGS, N.C. – Sophomore Andre Scrubb threw his first complete game and struck out a career-high 10 batters to lead the High Point University baseball team to an 8-3 win over No. 4 Liberty in the first round of the Big South Baseball Championship presented by Hardees and Enterprise Rent A Car on Tuesday night in Boiling Springs, N.C.

“We played a complete game tonight,” head coach Craig Cozart said. “We put up a zero in the error column, which is something we have struggled with. Andre Scrubb was ultra competitive on the mound and to get a complete game sets us up nicely in a double-elimination tournament. We did some real nice things offensively. Josh Greene‘s two-run home run set the tone and then we kept tacking on runs.”

Scrubb allowed just three runs on five hits and two walks while striking out 10 to improve to 6-1 on the season. The right-hander has pitched 12.2 innings against the Flames over the past five days, striking out 17 LU batters. Scrubb bested his previous career highs of seven innings pitched and seven strikeouts.

Matt Pennington got the start on the mound for Liberty and took the loss, dropping to 3-2 on the season Pennington gave up five earned runs on 11 hits with two strikeouts on the night.

High Point improves to 28-24 overall with the win. It is the fourth time in seven years under Cozart that the Panthers have opened the Big South Tournament with a win. Liberty drops to 33-22 overall with the loss, its third in four games over the past six days against High Point.

Sophomore Josh Greene staked the Panthers to an early 2-0 lead in the top of the first inning with his seventh home run of the season. The first-team All-Big South Selection turned on a 2-1 pitch and hit it over the wall in right to give HPU the early lead.

High Point added a run in the fourth and another in the fifth to extend its lead to 4-0. Freshman Carson Jackson drove in the run in the fourth with an RBI single and senior Josh Spano drove in the run in the fifth with an RBI single.

The Flames got on the board with a solo home run in the bottom of the sixth inning by Sammy Taormina but High Point answered right back in the top of the following inning when senior Brady Williamson connected for his first home run of the season, a solo shot that put HPU in front by a 5-1 margin.

High Point continued to extend its lead, scoring three runs in the eighth to go ahead 8-1. Senior Spencer Angelis drove in Greene for the first run with a double to the left-center gap, his second double of the night. Senior Tony Fortier-Bensen hit a sacrifice fly and senior Dane McDermott added an RBI single as HPU took a seven-run lead.

Taormina got to Scrubb again in the bottom of the eighth with his second home run of the night, a two-run shot to right that made the score 8-3.

The Panthers finished the game with 14 hits compared to just five for Liberty. Williamson went 4-5 out of the leadoff spot for HPU with an RBI and two runs scored while Greene and Angelis both finished with three hits. Greene went 3-4 with a walk, two RBI and three runs scored while finishing a triple away from the cycle. Angelis went 3-4 with two doubles and an RBI.

High Point advances to face No. 1-seed Radford in the second round of the Big South Baseball Championship on Wednesday, May 20, in Boiling Springs, N.C. The game will begin 45 minutes after the conclusion of the game between No. 2 Coastal Carolina and No. 3 Winthrop, which is scheduled to begin at 4:30 p.m.