BREVARD, N.C. - The Brevard College baseball team (20-12, 10-5 USA South) used a five and eight-run inning to break open a 14-3 victory over Mary Baldwin University (4-26, 0-15 USAS) to sweep all three games of this weekend's USA South Conference series on Sunday afternoon at Gil Coan Field.
Brevard scored 14 unanswered runs to take the win after the visiting Fighting Squirrels scored three runs through the first three innings. BC totaled five runs in the bottom of the third and then exploded for eight in the bottom of the eighth to clinch the win.
Cale Oehler went 2-for-4 with a pair of triples, two runs scored, and a team-high four RBIs. Senior catcher Brett Burchett capped off Senior Weekend with a solo home run as part of a 2-for-3 outing at the plate, scoring two runs while driving in two RBIs. Luke Morton and Frankie Vasquez also logged two hits apiece, while Zach Allison, Blake Burchett, Logan Clark, and Parker Crews all totaled hits in BC's 12-hit performance.
Connor Crosby got the start, allowing three runs (two earned) on six hits with a strikeout in three innings of work. Cameron Cook (2-0) came in after BC's five-run third inning and proceeded to shut out the MBU lineup for the remainder of the contest to earn the win, giving up five hits and two walks in six scoreless frames with a strikeout.
Josh Lallo logged three hits while Tyler Smith added a pair of base knocks as Mary Baldwin totaled 11 hits on Sunday. Tucker Hensley (3-6) was saddled with the loss after four innings of work, as the Fighting Squirrels featured five different pitchers.
MBU opened up the game by scoring an unearned run on a sacrifice fly to take a 1-0 lead. Hensley retired the first six Tornado batters he saw before the Fighting Squirrels added two runs in the top of the third with another sacrifice fly and a bases-loaded hit by pitch to extend their lead to a 3-0 margin.
Brevard used two RBI singles, a double steal, an Oehler RBI triple, and a Vasquez RBI double to take its first lead of the ballgame, 5-3, at the end of the third inning.
Brett Burchett launched a solo home run, his third career home run, over the left-field wall to extend BC's lead to 6-3 through four innings played.
After each side traded scoreless frames from the fifth through seventh innings, BC jumped on the MBU in the bottom of the eighth inning. BC scored runs on two bases-loaded walks, an RBI single, a sacrifice fly, a bases-clearing RBI triple from Oehler, and a fielder's choice RBI by Taylor Mattern to take an insurmountable 14-3 lead with one inning left to play.
Cook surrendered a two-out single in the top of the ninth, but no harm was done as the Tornados completed their three-game sweep of the Fighting Squirrels, 14-3.
Brevard returns to conference action next weekend with a road series in Cary, North Carolina at the USA Baseball National Training Complex against William Peace University in a three-game series beginning with a doubleheader on Saturday, April 22.
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