Box Score Box Score

CONWAY, SC – Winthrop right-handed pitcher Preston Johnson held the 29^th-ranked Coastal Carolina Chanticleers scoreless over the final four innings of play on Saturday night as the Eagles picked up a 6-5 victory at Watson Stadium in game two of a three-game series.

The Eagles improve to 15-33 on the season and 8-12 in conference play, while the Chanticleers fall to 34-16 overall and 15-5 in the conference.

Johnson (2-7) tossed 4.2 innings of relief in place of starting pitcher Eric Ruth and gave up just one hit on no walks and tied his career-high of six strikeouts. Aaron Burke (8-4) took the loss in relief allowing one run on three hits, two walks and two strikeouts in 4.0 innings of work.

Winthrop came out in the top of the first inning and took a 1-0 lead over Coastal Carolina on Chas Crane's RBI single to center field scoring Leighton Daniels from second after he singled to left field with one out in the inning and went to second base on a walk to TJ Olesczuk. The Chanticleers responded to tie the game at 1-1 in the bottom of the first on Rich Witten's RBI single to left field.

Daniels scored the Eagles' second run of the game in the top of the third as they took a 2-1 lead on Justin Hopper's RBI single, but Coastal Carolina tied game again at 2-2 in the bottom of the third on an RBI single by Ted Blackman.

The Chanticleers would take a 4-2 lead in the fourth inning after scoring two runs against Ruth on an RBI groundout by Tucker Frawley and a RBI single by Sloan Gilliam.

Winthrop took advantage of two Coastal Carolina errors in the top of the fifth to re-take the lead at 5-4 against Chanticleer starting pitcher Austin Wallace. Olesczuk started the inning by reaching on a fielding error by Brian Pruett at shortstop, and then came home along with Matt Lobacz after Pruett's throwing error on Hopper's infield single. Crane would score in the next at-bat as Jason Driver brought him home on an RBI groundout to second.

Coastal Carolina nodded the contest up at 5-5 in its half of the fifth on a bases load walk by Alex Buccilli, but then Johnson come on in relief of Ruth with one out and got Frawley to hit into a 6-4-3 double play to end the fifth.

Olesczuk led off the top of the sixth for the Eagles with a double down the right field line and moved to third on Lobacz's single to right field. Crane put Winthrop ahead 6-5 in the next at-bat with his second RBI single of the game off Burke.

Johnson retired 13 of the 14 batters he faced in his relief outing, including striking out three out of the last eight batters of the game after giving up a one-out single to Jacob May in the bottom of the seventh.

Daniels, Lobacz, Crane and Hopper all had two hits each to lead the Eagles offensively in game two, while Crane and Hopper had two RBI each. May, Whitten and Blackman recorded two hits apiece for the Chanticleers, and five different batters posted one RBI each.

Winthrop and Coastal Carolina will wrap up their three-game series on Sunday, May 13 at 2 p.m.