BOILING SPRINGS, N.C. – Winthrop baseball (15-18, 8-4 Big South Conference) ended the series with a big 10-5 victory in game three over Gardner-Webb (19-15, 6-6 Big South Conference) Sunday afternoon, but was bested 7-6 in the resumption of game two's ninth inning.

HOW IT HAPPENED
Game 2
-Winthrop and Gardner-Webb battled through four scoreless frames, before a Scout McFalls single scored Grant English to break the stalemate and put the Eagles on top 1-0 in the 5^th.
-A Dillon Morton homer and a bases loaded RBI by Jake Sullivan extended the lead to 3-1 in the 7^th, but GWU would answer in the bottom half of the inning to tie it up.
-GWU walked in another run for the Eagles with the bases loaded in the 8^th, followed by Tyler Halstead delivering a two-RBI double to put Winthrop ahead 6-3.
-The game would be halted starting play in the bottom of the 9^th with Winthrop leading 6-3 due to wet conditions and the decision made to restart at 1 p.m. Sunday.
-Upon the restart on Sunday, the Runnin' Bulldogs came out hot and belted a two-run homer and a single RBI to tie the ballgame at 6-6. GWU would bring home a runner from second with a walk-off single RBI to win the game 7-6.
 
Game 3
-The Eagles jumped out to an early 2-0 lead in the 1st courtesy of a two-run homer to center from senior Mitch Spires.
-Spires would go yard again in the 3^rd to move the margin to 3-0 for Winthrop.
-Cale Gibson would join in with an RBI double in the 5^th for a 4-0 lead. Gardner-Webb scored its first runs of the day in the 5^th, but would never pull closer than a two-run margin.
-The Eagles took advantage of two GWU errors to plate four more runs in the 7^th.
-Dalton Whitaker took the mound with one out in the 7^th to close out the game and posted back-to-back strike outs looking to end the inning, going on to allow just one hit, a single, in the 9^th.
 

NOTABLES
-Senior Mitch Spires was 3-for-4 at the plate with two home runs in game 3 and 2-for-5 in game 2.

-Freshman Cody Whitten earned his first weekend start of his career, taking the mound for game three and going 5.0 innings allowing five hits and two runs and notching a career-high seven strikeouts.

UP NEXT
Winthrop is on the road Tues., Apr. 10 at in-state foe Furman before returning home to The Winthrop Ballpark to host Radford in Big South play, Fri.-Sun., Apr. 13-15.