College of Charleston
The Citadel
CofC Blasts Bulldogs, 9-6; Completes Series Sweep
4/27/2008 4:00:00 AM | Baseball
The College of Charleston blasted a school-record four homers in the seventh inning that erased a two-run deficit and lifted the Cougars to a 9-6 win over The Citadel and a sweep of its three-game Southern Conference series before 817 at Patriots Point Stadium on Sunday.
Charleston, which improved to 30-14 overall and 13-5 in league play, has won 17 of its last 24 matchups with The Citadel dating back to 2003. It also marked Charleston's seventh straight season of at least 30 wins and marked the second straight season they've swept the Bulldogs in a three-game league series. The Bulldogs fell to 23-20 and 11-10.
Stuart Haywood's solo homer to right in the second and his RBI single to center in the third gave Charleston a 3-0 lead. The Citadel got two runs in the fifth, another in the sixth, and added a two-run homer by Matt Arnold in the seventh that gave the Bulldogs a 5-3 lead.
In the bottom of the seventh, Gabe Marchant led off with a towering homer to right, and one out later, Mike Hentz hit a solo homer to center that tied the game at 5-all.
Haywood followed with a single to right, stole second and scored on Austin Morgan's double to right. Brandon Sizemore, who's homered in five of the last six games, added his 12th homer of the season, a two-run shot to left, that gave Charleston the lead for good at 8-5. Michael Harrington followed with his school record-setting 17th homer of the season, a blast to right that extended Charleston's lead to 9-5.
The Bulldogs got an RBI single by Arnold in the ninth to close out the scoring. Charleston righty Danny Meszaros got Sid Fallaw to bounce into a game-ending double play with two on in the ninth.
Meszaros (4-3) picked up the win despite surrendering two runs over the final three innings with a strikeout. Matt Reifsnider (4-3) suffered the loss surrendering three runs on seven hits over 3 1/3 innings of work.
Harrington, who homered in the final two games of the series, eclipsed Brett Anderson's single-season home run mark of 16 set in 2004.
