BOX SCORE

PLAY-BY-PLAY

CLINTON, S.C. – The Eastern Kentucky University baseball team played its second extra innings game in three days on Friday afternoon as the Colonels fell to Presbyterian College, 8-7. The back-and-forth game featured six lead changes and ended with a walk-off single to center by Matt Hill in the bottom of the 10th.

EKU (2-3) took a 7-5 lead into the bottom of the ninth; however, faulty fielding facilitated a two-run rally by the Blue Hose and sent the game into extra innings. Hill then scored Jesse Harmon with a bloop single into center field to win it.

Sophomore Eric Sanders (0-1) picked up the loss for EKU, working the final 1.1 innings of the game and allowing three runs (only one of them earned) on three hits.

Sophomore Matt Harris started the game for the Colonels and went five innings while allowing five runs on seven hits. Freshman Austin Rexroat pitched three innings of scoreless middle relief following Harris.

Chris Powell (1-1) got the win for PC, going two innings and allowing no runs on two hits.

Sophomore Richie Rodriguez produced a fine day at the plate for EKU, going 4-for-5 and blasting his second career home run. Junior Jayson Langfels batted 3-for-5 with an RBI and a run scored and sophomore Michael Garcia went 2-for-3 with another home run.

Harmon led PC at the plate, hitting 3-for-5 with a pair of RBI and runs.

After PC drew first blood with a run in the first, the Colonels manufactured a run in the second to tie the score. Senior Anthony Ottrando walked to lead off the inning and advanced to second on a double to left by Garcia. Senior Joey Stevens then plated Ottrando with a groundout to second base, knotting the score 1-1.

The Blue Hose (2-8) got an RBI groundout of their own in the bottom of the second to, again, take the lead; however, Rodriguez opened the third with a solo home run to tie the score and the Colonels took their first lead of the game when Langfels and Ottrando dropped consecutive singles in the outfield and junior Richie Allen reached on a fielder’s choice that scored Langfels.

The back-and-forth game continued into the bottom of the third as Harmon laced a two-out, two-run single through the right side of the infield that handed the lead to PC.

Garcia kept swinging a hot bat in the fifth, though, as he blasted a two-run job to left center, scoring Ottrando and reissuing the lead to the Colonels.

The Colonels would not hold that advantage long, however, as Nate Horton tied it by taking the first pitch he saw in the bottom of the fifth and powering it over the wall in right center, a solo shot that made it 5-5.

EKU took the inaugural multiple-run lead of the game in the top of the sixth. Sophomore Dustin Dunlop gave the Colonels the lead with a sacrifice fly to center that scored Stevens, and Langfels added to that lead with an RBI double to right center that plated junior Bryce Labhart and made it 7-5.

EKU returns to action tomorrow when they face Presbyterian in the second game of this weekend’s series. First pitch is 12:00 p.m.