College of Charleston
Elon
Elon Holds On To Beat Charleston, 15-14
4/18/2008 4:00:00 AM | Baseball
Mt. Pleasant, S.C. -- Dallas Tarleton homered and drove in five runs and Bennett Davis added a homer and four RBI as Elon hung on for a thrilling 15-14 win over the College of Charleston in Southern Conference baseball action before 336 at Patriots Point Field on Friday.
With the win, the Phoenix improved to 29-11 and 13-3 in league play. The Cougars fell to 25-13 and 8-5. Game two of the series is Saturday at 1:00.
Charleston's Michael Harrington belted a school record-tying three homers including a first inning two-run shot that gave the Cougars a 2-0 lead.
Trailing 2-1 entering the top of the third inning. Elon sent 13 batters to the plate and scored seven times to take an 8-2 lead. Davis belted a two-run homer to right and Tarleton added a three-run shot to left to highlight the inning.
Jeremie Tice's solo homer to left and a run-scoring single from Brandon Sizemore cut Elon's lead to 8-4 in the third inning. Harrington's second homer of the game was another two-run blast and pulled Charleston to within 8-6 in the fourth inning.
An RBI single by Davis, a sacrifice fly by Neal Pritchard and a bases loaded walk to Ryan Adams stretched Elon's lead to 11-6 in the fifth inning. The Cougars got an RBI double from Stuart Haywood and a run-producing grounder by Cole Rakar that cut Elon's lead to 12-8 in the seventh.
After Elon tallied three runs in the top of the ninth, the Cougars made things interesting in their final at bat. Michael Kohn had an RBI single, Matt Leeds a bases loaded walk and Clay McCord a sacrifice fly that cut the margin to 15-11. Harrington followed with a towering three-run homer to center, his team-leading 15th on the season, that made it a 15-14 game. After Tice singled to right, Elon closer Thomas Girdwood struck out Gabe Marchant to end the 3-hour, 53-minute marathon.
Harrington finished with three hits and seven RBI, while Marchant had two hits and scored three times. Cory Harrilchak added three hits and Neal Pritchard scored three times for Elon.
Steven Hensley (8-0) picked up the win despite surrendering six runs, five earned, over the first five innings. He walked six and struck out seven. Hensley, a junior, tied an Elon record with his 274th career strikeout. Girdwood recorded the game's final out for his ninth save of the season. Austin Garrett (5-2) was the starter and loser for Charleston.
Harrington became just the third Charleston player to hit three homers in a game, and the first to accomplish the feat at home. Monte Lee hit three homers at South Carolina on Feb. 6, 1999 and Lee Curtis belted three at VMI on May 12, 2002.
