Box Score

ROCK HILL, SC -- The Winthrop baseball team led for most of the game on Sunday afternoon but Radford overcame the Eagles in the late innings to take the 7-5 victory and complete the three game sweep.
 
The Eagles got on the board early with a big first inning as Leighton Daniels, Jace Whitley, and Cody Dolan led off the game with three straight hits and all came around to score to give Winthrop a 3-0 lead.  The Highlanders got things going in the third scoring a pair of runs but the Eagles responded with a pair of runs of their own in the fifth.  The Highlanders went on to close out the game scoring five unanswered runs including the pivotal two-run triple from Josh Gardiner in the eighth inning to give Radford their first lead of the game.  Gardiner capped things off by stealing home plate to up the lead to 7-5 while the Highlander bullpen went on to close out the Eagles in the ninth to secure the 7-5 victory in the series finale.
 
The series sweep drops Winthrop to 10-22 on the season and 2-7 in the Big South while Radford has won seven straight improving their record to 19-11 including 7-2 in the Big South.  The Eagles look to turn things around when they travel to Charlotte on Tuesday to take on the 49ers in midweek non-conference matchup at 6:00 p.m.
 
Daniels, Whitley, and Dolan carried over their hot hitting from Saturday as they started the game out with three straight hits off Highlander starter Keith Fritz.  All three hitters eventually came around to score giving the Eagles an early 3-0 lead.
 
Radford got on the board in the third when Zach Woolcock roped a two out single to right field scoring Black Sipe and Gardiner to cut the lead to 3-2.  The Eagles managed to get those runs back in the fifth on RBI's from Whitley and Chad Smith to up the lead to 5-2.
 
The Eagles' offensive was halted there as the Highlander bullpen blanked the Eagles in five innings of relief give Radford the opportunity to battle back.  Radford continued its comeback in the sixth when third baseman Hunter Higgerson drove the first pitch of the at-bat down the left field line scoring Woolcock and Jeff Kemp and bring the Highlanders within one run. 
 
The big inning for Radford came in the eighth as the Highlanders managed to plate three runs highlighted by a two-run triple from Gardiner to take a 7-5 lead late in the game.  Radford reliever Daniel Bridgeman (3-1) then came out in the ninth and retired the Eagles to wrap up the 7-5 victory for the Highlanders. 
Tyler Klitsch (1-6) battled through 7.2 innings of work while allowing seven runs on eleven hits and striking out one.  Freshman shortstop Kyle Edwards collected his first career three-hit game including a run scored while Daniels and Dolan each added a pair of hits.