No. 6 Baseball Takes Game One From CIU

COLUMBIA, S.C.- The baseball team, ranked No. 6 in the NAIA, went on the road for another Appalachian Athletic Conference (AAC) series. The series against the Columbia International University Rams began on Friday with a single game. 

TWU scored 11 runs through the first five innings. Through the first two innings, the Bulldogs hit three home runs and held a 6-0 advantage. Marco Martinez hit the first home run, bringing across two runs with Braxton Turner on first base. Jack Stevens was the third run of the first inning, scoring on a Cayle Webster ground out. 

In the second inning, Evan Magill and Turner hit solo home runs to make the score 5-0. The run that gave the team their six-run advantage through the first two innings came when Stevens hit a single up the middle that scored Blake Hubble from second. 

Webster opened the third inning with a triple and scored on a Magill sacrifice fly to move the lead to 7-0. After seeing the score move to 7-3, Martinez scored in the fourth inning on a Stevens RBI single. Another three runs came on the board for Tennessee Wesleyan in the fifth inning.

With Kruise Newman on third and courtesy-runner Hagen Escoto on second, an error on Turner's contact gave both base runners the chance to score, moving the lead to 10-3. Hubble hit a single to center field to bring Turner in from second base, giving the team the 11 runs through five innings. The team went on to win the opening game of the series 13-5 after an Escoto sacrifice fly scored Carson Ford in the eighth and Martinez hit a solo home run in the ninth. 

Gage Vailes got the pitching win, striking out seven batters in five innings.

The series between the two teams ends on Saturday with a doubleheader beginning at 12:00 p.m.