Box Score
ROCK HILL, SC -- The Winthrop baseball team got strong pitching and timely hitting to knock off the No. 28 ranked Clemson Tigers 3-2 in 11 innings Wednesday afternoon at Doug Kingsmore Stadium.
The victory was Winthrop's third in the last four meetings over Clemson and gives Eagles head coach
Tom Riginos his first coaching victory over the school where he served as an assistant for eight years before coming to Rock Hill. Clemson still leads the all-time series 18-5.
Winthrop scored what proved to be the winning run In the top of the 11th inning.
Leighton Daniels drove the first pitch of the inning from Tiger reliever Matt Campbell down the left field line for a double and later advanced to third on a passed ball. With one out in the inning, designated hitter
Clay Altman popped a fly ball into shallow right field. Playing aggressively on the base paths, Daniels tagged on the play slid home safely with the go-ahead run as the throw to the plate was off target.
Eric Ruth, who had come into the game in relief in the 10th inning, shut the door on Clemson in the bottom of the 11th to nail down the victory.
"We got great pitching today and played strong defense to be able to win today.," said Riginos, who is now in his third year at the Winthrop helm. "We are trying to learn how to instill a winning attitude with this team and today was a step in the right direction. We talked to the team today about doing the little things it takes to be successful. I felt good about this game when we got on the bus this morning. In our first seven games, it was the mental mistakes and the little things that we weren't doing that cost us ball games. We could easily be 6-2 right now."
Winthrop improves to 3-5 as it won its second extra-inning game this season while Clemson drops to 5-2. The Eagles will now head to Orlando, Florida Thursday morning to take on Central Florida in a three-game series this weekend.
The Eagles were strong out of the gate against Clemson with a couple of freshmen being the story early in the game. Starting his first collegiate game, southpaw Sam Kmiec started strong,, striking out six of the first nine Tigers he faced. Kmiec got some early run support from his fellow freshman Nick Bateman who drove the first pitch of the third inning over the left field wall for the first homerun of his career giving the Eagles a 1-0 lead.
Kmiec held the Tigers hitless through four and two-third innings, before the Tigers finally got to him with two outs in the bottom of the fifth scoring one run on three hits and tied the game at 1-1. Kmiec gave up three hits and finished with six strike outs.
Winthrop regained the lead in the sixth when
Leighton Daniels drew a one-out walk and advanced to second on a throwing error by the pitcher on a pick-off attempt.
Matt Lobacz promptly drove a 0-1 pitch up the middle for an RBI single scoring Daniels. The hit by Lobacz would extend his hitting streak to eight games and gave the Eagles a 2-1 lead.
However, the Tigers manufactured a run in the bottom half of the inning when Steven Dugger singled to center and eventually scored on a sacrifice fly to right field by Shane Kennedy to knot the game at 2-2.
Dominate bullpen performances by both teams would force the game to go into extra innings as no runs were scored in the seventh, eighth, ninth, or tenth innings.
After Kmiec's strong four-plus innings on the mound, Riginos used a committee of five more pitchers including Mitchell Knox,
Steven Howell, Jared Keels,
Josh Strong, and Ruth to finish out the game. The Winthrop bullpen allowed only one run in six and one-third innings.
In six innings of work this season, Ruth has yet to give up a run while striking out 10 and allowing only three hits. Altman's RBI sacrifice fly in the top of the 11th is his second game winning RBI this season and both have come in extra inning victories.
The Eagles will take on Central Florida (4-3) on Friday at 6:30, on Saturday at 4:00 p.m., and Sunday at 1:00 p.m. All three games can be heard on the Winthrop Sports Network via www.winthropeagles.com.
