Box Score
ROCK HILL, SC – The Winthrop baseball team dropped the finale of a three-game series to the UNC Asheville Bulldogs 2-1 on Sunday afternoon at The Winthrop Ballpark.
The Eagles fall to 17-15 on the season and 8-4 in the Big South, while the Bulldogs improve to 11-20 overall and 5-7 in conference play.
Dillon Tabar (3-1) earned the win in relief throwing 2.0 scoreless innings on two hits, no walks and one strikeout. Tommy Lawrence (1-2) took the loss allowing two runs on one hit, two walks and two strikeouts in 2.1 innings of work on Sunday.
Both starting pitchers for Winthrop and the Bulldogs, Matteo D'Angelo and Tommy Houmard, provided solid outings for their respective teams on the afternoon. D'Angelo pitched 6.0 innings of scoreless baseball and gave up four hits, one walk and three strikeouts. Houmard went 6.0 innings as well and surrendered one run on five hits, no walks and six strikeouts.
“Baseball is a game of inches,” said head coach Tom Riginos. “UNC Asheville did a really good job today. Matteo pitched well again.”
The Eagles came out in the bottom of the first inning and plated one run to take a 1-0 lead over UNC Asheville. Tyler Cook started the inning with a single to right field and then moved to second on a wild pitch by Houmard. Chas Crane followed by being hit by a pitch and Eddie Rohan singled to right field to load the bases with no outs. Houmard got Adam Gliebe to hit into a 4-6-3 double play and, in the process, drove in Cook.
The Bulldogs tied the contest up at 1-1 in the top of the seventh on an RBI groundout by Robert McIntosh to second base. The groundout by McIntosh brought in Cody Buch, who led off the inning with a walk by Lawrence, from third base and moved over to third after a sacrifice bunt by Catlin Carter and a single to left field by Jordan Lurie.
McIntosh gave UNC Asheville the lead with a two-out RBI single that just made it over the head of Cook at second base in the top of the ninth inning. Buch, who walked with one out in the inning, scored on the single by McIntosh.
“The pitching was good all weekend,” Riginos said. “I am real happy where the pitching was. We played good defense this weekend, even though we did have three errors today. Overall, we still played pretty good defense.”
Eight different Winthrop hitters recorded one hit each in the finale. Lurie led the Bulldogs offensively with a 3-for-5 performance, while McIntosh drove in both runs.
The Eagles will be back in action on Tuesday, Apr. 12 as they will travel to Greenville, SC to face the Furman Paladins. First pitch is scheduled for 6 p.m. Winthrop defeated the Paladins 10-0 in Rock Hill on Mar. 29.
