College of Charleston
Delaware
@CofCBaseball Keeps Rolling with 10-2 Win at Delaware
4/17/2015 10:47:00 PM | Baseball
NEWARK, Del. – First place College of Charleston baseball impressed in another Colonial Athletic Association victory over Delaware, 10-2, on Friday afternoon at Bob Hannah Stadium.
Charleston (26-8, 12-1 CAA), victors of 12 of their last 13 games, achieved 10 or more hits for the 21st time this season and ninth time in 10 outings, with six different Cougars springing for multiple hits.
Taylor Clarke (8-1) pitched another gem, going 8.0 innings without allowing an earned run. Clarke scattered six hits over his eight innings pitched, fanning five without allowing a walk.
Carter Love pitched the ninth inning, and marked his eighth straight scoreless appearance to solidify the win.
Offensively, Erven Roper went 3-for-5 with four RBIs which included his second homer of the year, with both coming in the last five games. Ryan Brown and Blake Butler were two of five hitters with two hits, and both drove in two RBIs apiece. Morgan Phillips and Carl Phillips both tallied two hits and one RBI, with Wise's RBI – his league best 45th of the season – coming by way of his 10th home run of the year.
“This was an overall, balanced victory for us today,” said head coach Monte Lee. “We got production out of a lot of guys in our lineup on the offensive side. Pitching wise, Clarke was exceptional; we feel good any time he's on the mound and we got eight innings without any earned runs out of him today. We scored over half of our runs with two outs, so our guys did a nice job of battling on the offensive side, and again our pitching was exceptional. Overall, it was a solid win for our club.”
The Cougars scored in each of the first five innings to stretch a lead, and Roper's three-run jack put the game away in the ninth inning.
Wise's home run put CofC on the board with two outs in the first inning, one of six two-out RBIs for the Cougars in the game.
CofC added to the lead in the top of the second, as Bradley Jones and Roper singled with one out, and Ryan Brown collected a couple two-out RBIs with CofC's third single of the inning.
The Cougars gifted the Hens a fielding error to start the bottom of the second inning, and Clarke looked to work around the miscue by recording back-to-back outs, but Greg Olenski caught up with the first pitch he saw and homered to left for a pair of unearned UD runs.
Wise led off the Cougar third with a single to the right side, and his hustle prevented a double play on a groundball to shortstop in the following at bat by Butler. The Hens elected to intentionally walk Nick Pappas with first base unoccupied, and Phillips promptly punished the decision by singling up the middle on the first pitch he saw, scoring Wise.
The Cougars put their first two hitters on base in the fourth, by way of a Champ Rowland walk and single by Brown, and a sacrifice bunt execution by Alex Pastorius put two runners in scoring position. The Hens again elected to issue an intentional walk, this time against Wise to load the bases, and Butler blooped a single over third base to plate to plate Brown and Rowland.
The College scored for the fifth consecutive inning when Jones drove his first pitch to the wall in left center for a double, and later scored on an RBI single by Roper.
The score held at 7-2 until Nick Pappas and Jones worked walks in the ninth inning, and Roper left the yard on a two-out, 2-2 pitch to push it to 10-2.
Game two of the series is scheduled for Saturday at 1 p.m., with The College's Brandon Glazer getting the start against Delaware's Ron Marinaccio.
POSTGAME NOTES
Charleston entered the week ranked No. 22 by both Baseball America and the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association (NCBWA), and No. 30 by Collegiate Baseball, while receiving votes in the USA Today Coaches Poll (No. 29) and D1Baseball Poll (No. 26).
Charleston has scored in the first inning in over half of their contests this season and improves to 17-1 when doing so.
The College is 23-0 when leading after the sixth inning and 24-0 when leading after the eighth.
Charleston has hit multiple home runs 13 times this season, going 12-1 on those occasions.
The Cougars eclipsed double-digit hits for the ninth time in 10 games to improve upon their batting average which entered the game ranked seventh nationally.
The Cougars were consistent at the plate in all situations, batting .368 (14-for-38) overall, .385 (5-for-13) with two outs, .389 (7-for-18) with runners on base, and .385 (5-for-13) with runners in scoring position.
Carter Love does not have a run charged against him in eight consecutive outings, pitching 9.2 scoreless innings with only 5 hits and one walk against 12 strikeouts over the stretch.
The game was the 17th multiple-hit game for both Morgan Phillips and Blake Butler.
Blake Butler has reached base successfully* in 32 straight games going all the way back to opening weekend. On the season, Butler has at least one base hit in 30 of CofC's 34 games.
Carl Wise has reached base* in 20 consecutive games.
*A reached-base streak includes base hits, walks, and hit by pitches. Reaching on an error or fielder's choice does not extend a reached-base streak.
