| Radford’s Alexander Lee had five hits to lead the Highlanders to a 15-1 midweek baseball win over North Carolina A&T Monday evening at RU Baseball Stadium. The game was played on Monday instead of the regularly scheduled Tuesday night affair because of pending rain.
The Highlanders (21-17) were able to score all 15 of their runs after the fourth inning. The loss for A&T (15-25) comes a day after it was able to take two out of three from conference nemesis Bethune-Cookman. It appeared on Monday that the Aggies momentum rolled over into Monday.
Aggies leadoff man Dylan Hipp opened the game by reaching first on an error by Radford shortstop Danny Hrbeck. Hipp moved to second when Radford second baseman Josh Gardiner was not able to immediately pull the ball out of his glove to turn the 4-6-3 double play. Instead Gardiner was only able to throw out Luke Tendler going to first.
An infield single by freshman John Pope put runners on the corner for redshirt junior Micah Carmony. Carmony hit a sacrifice fly to center field to give A&T a 1-0 lead. It was a lead starting right-hand pitcher Brian Poag was able to hold on to until the Radford fifth.
The first two Radford batters reached base via hit by pitch and an error respectively. A sac bunt moved both runners into scoring position, but Poag was able to get Shane Johnsonbaugh to pop out to short for the second out. But things unraveled from there as Patrick Marshall hit a sharp groundball that went just outside the reach of John Pope at first base.
A&T second baseman Timothy Ravare had an outside chance to throw Marshall out on the ricochet, but his throw was not in time. But the time the play was completed, Radford had two runs on the board. Hunter Higgerson would add a two-run single in the inning to give the Highlanders a 4-1 lead.
Poag (1-3) took the loss, while Tyler Swarmer (1-0) picked up the win. Ravare led A&T with two hits. |
