GREENEVILLE, Tenn. --- Paul Finger went 3-for-4 and Jared Richmond clubbed his 16th home run of the season to lead the Tusculum College baseball team to an 11-5 South Atlantic Conference win over visiting Newberry College Friday night at Pioneer Park.
The Pioneers (21-13, 8-8 SAC) win their seventh game in a row, while Newberry falls to 12-22 overall (1-15 SAC). Tusculum finished with 11 hits marking the 10th straight game it has posted double digit hits. TC also scored 10 or more runs in its fifth consecutive outing.
Newberry out-hit the Pioneers by a 12-11 margin, but four of TC's hit tally were of the extra-base variety, including three home runs.
Tusculum jumped out to a 4-0 lead, scoring a run in the first and three more in the second. In the first frame, Richmond connected on a solo blast over the right field wall, for his 27th career home run, which is now three shy of the all-time mark set by former SAC Player of the Year Shane Banks (30, 1997-99, 2001).
TC mounted a two-out rally in the second, started by Payden Houser who scored on an inside-the-park home run to center field. Following a walk to Rolondo Bonner, Matt Henriksen answered with this third homer of the season, a two-run blast to left field.
Newberry plated a run in the third when Keke Wadsworth drew a lead-off walk, moved to second on a bunt and later scored on Jovan Rohena's two-out single to make the score, 3-1.
The Pioneers answered with two runs in the fourth and three more in the sixth to move ahead to a 9-1 advantage. Bonner posted a two-run double in the fourth and followed with a two-run single in the sixth as he finished the night 2-for-2 with four RBI. TC added another tally in the seventh on a base hit by Finger and Nate Grabowski posted his second hit of the night with his RBI single in the eighth.
Newberry plated three runs in the eighth, including a RBI double by Chris Love and RBI singles off the bats of Sanchez Gartman and Scott Horvath.
Tusculum junior right-hander Tyler Collins picked up the win to improve to 4-1 on the season. Collins went 7 1/3 innings, allowed 11 hits, four runs, walked two and struck out three. Newberry starter Chris Roman (2-6) suffered the loss in his 6 2/3 innings of work.
With the home run, Richmond extends his hitting streak to 15 straight games, while Bonner has now hit safely in 11 consecutive contests. Also extending hitting streaks to 10 in a row are Houser and Grabowski.
The two teams will conclude the series with Saturday's 1 p.m. doubleheader, which will also be Tusculum's Senior Day.
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