HPU baseball drops pitchers’ duel at Stetson, 1-0

• High Point dropped the rubber game of the weekend, 1-0, at Stetson on Sunday.
• The Panthers outhit the Hatters, 8-4, but left 14 men on base in the contest.
• Freshman Drew Daczkowski turned in a quality start, allowing just one unearned run in six-plus innings of work.

DELAND, Fla. – The High Point University baseball team dropped a pitchers’ duel on Sunday, 1-0, in the final game of the weekend series against Stetson in DeLand, Fla. Freshman Drew Daczkowski pitched a career-best six innings and allowed just one unearned run in the loss.

“The biggest takeaway from this weekend is the fact that our two freshman arms learned from their first outings and were tremendous this weekend,” head coach Craig Cozart said. “Drew Daczkowski was special today and Matt Hodges came in a did a really good job. We just didn’t get the big hit we needed but sometimes that’s baseball. I have to give Stetson a lot of credit, they pitched the ball really well. We will get home and adjust and we will be better for this in the future.”

Daczkowski pitched into the seventh inning and allowed just one unearned run on four hits and two walks while striking out four for the Panthers, taking the hard-luck loss to drop to 0-1 on the season.

Stetson’s Logan Gilbert pitched six shutout innings for the win. He allowed just four hits and three walks while striking out 10 and improved to 1-0 for the season. Dean Garabedian pitched 1-2/3 innings and allowed just one hit to earn the save.

High Point drops to 4-3 on the season with the loss while Stetson improves to 4-4.

The only run of the contest came in the bottom of the third when Stetson took advantage of an HPU error and pushed a run across with an RBI single by Jacob Koos.

High Point outhit Stetson, 8-4, but finished the game with 14 men left on base. HPU finished 3-18 with runners on and 0-12 with runners in scoring position. Junior Spencer Brown went 2-4 at the plate while junior Jordan Sergent was 1-3 with two walks.

The Panthers will return home on Tuesday, Feb. 28, when they will welcome NC Central to Williard Stadium for the first of two midweek contests. First pitch is set for 4 p.m.