HICKORY, N.C. --- The Tusculum University baseball team split a South Atlantic Conference baseball doubleheader at nationally-ranked Lenoir-Rhyne University Saturday at Durham Field.
The Pioneers won the first game 8-6, while the No. 16/15 ranked Bears captured the night-cap, 9-4.
Tusculum (23-16, 9-8 SAC) and Lenoir-Rhyne (31-9, 13-4 SAC) will wrap up the three-game series on Monday at 3 p.m. at Durham Field.
Game 1: Tusculum 8, No. 16/15 Lenoir-Rhyne 6
Blaze McCauley went 3-for-4 with two RBI while Drew Sliwinski tossed 2.1 shutout innings of relief in Tusculum's 8-6 win in the opener. The Pioneers extended their winning streak to four in a row, while ending the Bears' eight-game winning streak.
The Pioneers took advantage nine hits, eight walks, two hit batters and eight wild pitches by the Bears.
Tusculum broke a 6-6 tie in the eighth inning when Christian Ortega led off with a single and later scored on a two-base fielding error on Murphy Flood's fly ball to left. TU added an insurance run when Wes Reynolds hit a RBI triple to make it an 8-6 contest.
Sliwinksi (2-3) retired the side in order in the bottom the eighth and worked around a one-out single in the ninth to secure the victory.
LR jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the first inning thanks to Tyler McPeak's two-out, two-run single.
Tusculum answered with three runs in the second inning and two more in the third to take a 5-2 lead. In the second frame, Reynolds led off with a walk and later scored on Tyler Ranel's RBI double. McCauley followed with walk and after a TU pop up, Ben Scartz singled to bring home Ranel to tie the game at 2-2. Ortega broke the tie with his base hit to bring home McCauley with the go-ahead run.
In the top of the third, TU mounted a two-out rally as Will Samuelson drew a walk and Ranel singled to set the table for McCauley with his two-out single and a 5-2 lead.
LR got a run back in the bottom of the third when Cole Laskowski was hit by a pitch, stole second, moved to third on a wild pitch and scored on Cole Stanford's ground out.
The Pioneers got the run back in the fourth when Ortega was hit by a pitch and three wild pitches later, came into score TU's sixth run.
The Bears would tie the game at 6-6 with three runs in the seventh inning off of TU starter Luke Absher. Zach Evans led off with a single, but Absher got a fly out and a strikeout. Sal Carricato took the first offering by Absher and hit a two-run homer to trim the deficit to 6-5. Stanford walked and scored on McPeak's double.
Sliwinski took over with the go ahead run at second. He would walk Wade Cuda to put to runners aboard, but got the final out of the inning with a foul out to set the table for the TU eighth inning.
Ortega and Ranel each recorded two hits while also scoring two runs apiece.
Lenoir-Rhyne finished the game with 10 hits led by three-hit performances by Carricato and McPeak.
Game 2: No. 16/15 Lenoir-Rhyne 9, Tusculum 4
Lenoir-Rhyne broke a 4-4 tie with four runs in the fifth inning as the Bears salvaged a 9-4 win in Saturday's second game.
Bryce Stober's went 2-for-3 including his two-run single in the fifth to spark the victory.
LR starter Andrew Patrick recorded 10 strikeouts in his five innings of work to improve to 5-1 on the season, while TU starter Seth Willis (6-2) suffered the loss.
Tusculum scored a run in the top of the first inning only to see the Bears plate two in the bottom of the second. TU tied the game at 2-2 in the third when Zane Keener singled, stole second and scored on Ben Scartz's RBI single.
The Bears regained the lead in the bottom of the third with a pair of runs to go up 4-2. The Pioneers rallied back with two runs in the fourth as Ranel doubled home Will Samuelson. Ranel would plate the winning run when he scored on a Scartz ground out.
LR would bat around in the fifth as Stober broke the tie with a two-run single, while Stanford and Blake Bean would follow with RBI hits to lead 8-4. Mason Maxwell would added a RBI single in the sixth to provide the final margin of victory.
Tusculum's Zane Keener reached base in both games on Saturday to extend his streak to 40 consecutive contests getting on base safely.
