ROCK HILL, SC – The Winthrop baseball team captured its 30
th win of the season after defeating Radford 7-3, Friday evening at Williams Field.
The Eagles improved to 30-22 overall and 16-7 in the Big South while Radford falls to 23-29 on the year and 11-12 in the league. The rubber match will be Saturday but the starting time has been changed to 11 a.m.
Hunter Lipscomb led the Eagles offensively as he had two hits with five RBI.
Anthony Paulsen had two runs and two hits and extended his hitting streak to 19 straight games and his streak of reaching base to 33.
Mitch Spires went 2-for-4 with two RBI and a run.
With Winthrop leading 4-1 entering the seventh inning, it added three insurance runs as Spires laced a double to left that scored
Grant English from second, and then Lipscomb singled to right that brought in Paulsen from third and Spires from second.
Winthrop's Riley
Arnone (3-2) earned the win as he went four innings, allowing two runs on four hits.
Dalton Whitaker earned his ninth save of the season by recording the final two outs of the game. Radford's Danny
Hrbek (4-5) suffered the loss as he pitched four innings, allowing two runs (none earned) on four hits. Winthrop's Nate
Pawelczyk didn't factor into the decision as he tossed 4.1 innings, allowing one run on two hits.
Radford grabbed an early 1-0 lead in the bottom of the second when it had bases loaded and Luke Wise walked to bring in Spencer Horwitz who singled earlier that inning.
The Eagles grabbed the lead in the third inning. Winthrop started the inning with back-to-back singles by
Matthew Mulkey and
Jake Sullivan, both advanced on an error by the right fielder
Adam Whitacre and both scored on a single up the middle by Lipscomb.
In the top of the fifth inning, Mulkey reached on an error by the third baseman Matt Roth, advanced to third on a double by Paulsen, and scored on a single up the middle by Spires. Lipscomb hit a fielder's choice that scored Paulsen from third to make it 4-1.
The Highlanders cut into the Winthrop lead with two runs in the bottom of the eighth when Jonathan Gonzalez doubled to left center that scored Kyler Butler and Whitacre from second and third.
For the latest information on Winthrop Baseball team, follow @WinthropBasebal on Twitter or go to
www.winthropeagles.com.