BREVARD, N.C. – The Brevard College baseball team (11-13, 5-5 USAS) scored seven unanswered runs and shut down Huntingdon College (13-17, 4-8 USAS) over the game's final five innings to claim a key conference victory, 8-5, on a sunny Friday afternoon at Gil Coan Field.
Junior shortstop Jason Jucker led the way offensively for the Tornados with a 2-for-5 effort with a double and three RBI's. Jucker led five Tornados with multi-hit performances, as Zach Allison, Logan Clark, Peter Fumero, and Noah Harris all logged two hits in the game. Clark added his first collegiate double while Allison tallied an RBI. Fumero recorded a sacrifice hit and a stolen base in the matchup.
Nathan Sanders (3-2) was the pitcher of record after relieving Trenten Anderson, who lasted 3.2 innings of work. Sanders hurled 2.1 hitless innings with a pair of key strikeouts to keep the Tornados in the lead. Bryce Bowers worked a pair of innings with a strikeout and no runs allowed before senior right-handed pitcher Huntley Hacker earned his third save of the season with a perfect ninth inning to clinch the three-run victory.
Andrew Knight slugged a pair of home runs to highlight Huntingdon's offensive effort, while Carden Mellown (3-5) was the pitcher of record for the Hawks.
The Hawks struck first with three runs in the top of the first with an RBI-single and a two-run homer, taking a 3-0 lead. Knight added a run to Huntingdon's lead with his second home run of the game, extending the Hawks' advantage to a four-run margin.
Harris led off the bottom of the third with a single and was moved up on a wild pitch before Jucker brought him home on an RBI-double, putting the Tornados on the board. A pair of flyouts prevented further damage in the frame.
The Hawks added a fifth run on an RBI single in the top of the fourth, but with runners on second and third and two outs, Sanders forced a key strikeout to keep the contest at a four-run margin, 5-1.
The Tornados loaded the bases with three singles, but faced a two-out situation. BC rallied with five runs in the inning, beginning when Holden Lanier scored on a wild pitch. After Jack Atkinson drew a walk, Jucker hit a two-RBI single to cut Huntingdon's lead to two runs, 5-3. Allison hit a slow-rolling single to shortstop to score Atkinson, and a throwing error plated Jucker to give the Tornados their first lead of the ballgame, 6-5.
Sanders worked in and out of trouble in the top of the fifth and sixth frames, capping off his outing with a bases-loaded strikeout of Knight to maintain BC's one-run advantage.
Lanier turned an unassisted double play that ended a two-on, one-out situation for the Hawks in the top of the seventh as the Tornados used two hits and three errors in the bottom-half of the frame to plate a pair of insurance runs, extending their lead to an 8-5 margin.
Bowers capped off his two scoreless innings of work in the eighth before Hacker came on to close the victory out for the Tornados in the ninth inning.
Brevard will continue its push towards the USA South Conference Baseball tournament on Saturday as the Tornados close out their 2021 regular season with a doubleheader against Huntingdon, with a seven-inning contest taking place at 12 p.m. with game two - a nine-inning affair - set for approximately 3 p.m. The doubleheader of action at Gil Coan Field marks Senior Day for the Tornados, who will be honoring its nine-member senior class in between games.
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-BC-