College of Charleston
High Point
@CofCBaseball Evens High Point Series
3/15/2015 12:48:00 AM | Baseball
MT. PLEASANT, S.C. – College of Charleston baseball evened its series with High Point with a back-and-forth, 11-9 victory at Patriots Point on Saturday afternoon. The win forces a rubber game, set for Sunday at Patriots Point with first pitch scheduled for 1 p.m.
CofC (10-5) outlasted High Point with 11 runs on 15 hits, both of which were the second most of the season for the Cougar bats.
Charleston led 7-0 through five innings, but the Panthers surged to life with a six-run sixth inning, and suddenly seized an 8-7 lead with two more runs in the seventh. Morgan Phillips and Carl Wise provided late-inning fireworks for the Cougars, both going deep to left to shift the tide back in the Cougars' favor.
Brandon Glazer (2-0) earned the win after putting an end to the bleeding in the top of the sixth and pitching up until the ninth, at which point Chase Henry took over and earned his third save of the season. Eric Bauer started the game and had a quality start going until finding trouble in the inauspicious sixth.
“We got off to such a great start with Bauer pitching five scoreless innings,” said head coach Monte Lee. “We threw up a five-spot in the first, strung together quality at-bats, and found ourselves up 7-0, but then the sixth inning just would not end. They got some momentum going their way and picked up hit after hit, and we didn't make a couple plays which cost us. We put too much pressure on ourselves by not catching and throwing the baseball.
“But, then we stepped up in a big way. Morgan Phillips was huge; he stepped and put us ahead with a homer. Carl Wise gave us an insurance run with a homer which was also huge.”
The Cougars sprung for 15 hits by eight different hitters, led by Blake Butler who went 3-for-4 with two RBIs to extend his hitting streak to 13 games, and Phillips who was 2-for-3 and matched his career high with four RBIs.
Alex Pastorius homered as well, and joined Phillips, Wise, Ryan Brown, and Nick Pappas with multiple hits.
The Cougars went to work right away, putting their first three hitters aboard in the first before a Pappas double, a Butler triple, and a Pastorius homer quickly put CofC in the driver's seat, up 5-0.
The College added another in the second on the freshman-connection of Brown and Tommy Richter, with Brown singling and coming around to score on Richter's RBI double in the next at bat.
CofC furthered the lead to 7-0 in the fifth with singles by Butler and Phillips and an RBI sacrifice fly by Pastorius.
It was all Cougars until the sixth, when Josh Spano led off with a double for HPU, and six consecutive hits later, it was a 7-6 ballgame. The Panthers seized the lead in the seventh, taking advantage of a hit-by-pitch and Cougar error to plate the tying and go-ahead runs.
The Panthers wouldn't lead long, however, as Pappas walked and Butler singled to ignite the bottom half of the inning, and Phillips hammered his second homer of the series out to left on a 1-0 pitch, swinging the Cougars back out in front, 10-8.
HPU wasn't done yet, and cut the deficit in half with a run in the top of the eighth, but Wise put the insurance run back on the board with a solo shot in the bottom half.
Henry retired the leadoff hitter in the ninth, but HPU put the tying run on base with a checked-swing infield single and Texas-league blooper to put runners on the corners. Henry bore down and forced a groundball to set up a game-ending 6-4-3 double play.
“Chase Henry did a great job closing it down for us,” said Lee. “He got his leadoff hitter out, but then their guy reaches on a swinging bunt and next thing you know, there are runners on the corners and their winning run is at the plate. He gets their guy to hit into a double play to end the game which is awesome to see.
“It was a great win, but a very draining win for a head coach. Hopefully we'll come out crisper tomorrow and find a way to win the series.”
POSTGAME NOTES
For the third game in a row, the Cougar lineup was: 1. Ryan Brown (RF) | 2. Tommy Richter (DH) | 3. Carl Wise (3B) | 4. Nick Pappas (1B) | 5. Blake Butler (2B) | 6. Morgan Phillips (CF) | 7. Alex Pastorius (LF) | 8. Erven Roper (C) | 9. Champ Rowland (SS), as the Cougars worked against right-handed Panther starter Tyler Britton.
Morgan Phillips amassed his seventh multi-hit game of the season, while Carl Wise went for multiple RBIs for the sixth time this season.
Blake Butler has gotten a hit in 11 straight games and reached base successfully in 13 consecutive games. He has nine hits in the Cougars' last five games.
For the first time this season, Champ Rowland was kept off the bases.
The Cougars scored in all three runner-on-third with less-than-two-out situations.
The Cougars reached their leadoff hitter in 3-of-8 offensive innings and batter .381 (8-for-21) with runners on base.
The Cougars have not lost back-to-back games since opening weekend at South Carolina.
