Flying Fleet soars past NGU in three-game sweep
Posted by The Skyliner on February 11th, 2009Stephen Lane
Staff Writer
The North Greenville Crusader baseball team had high hopes for their season opener against Division II no. 23 Erskine College this past Friday. With a new coach and new strategy, they hoped to start their season off strong.
The Crusaders jumped ahead of the Flying Fleet 2-0 early in the second inning, but it was all Erskine from there on out.
The Flying Fleet outscored the Crusaders 13-2 in the final 7 innings to go on to win 13-4. The Crusaders fought hard early but just could not handle the high powered bats of Erskine as the Flying Fleet pounded out 20 hits on Friday.
The Crusaders were hoping to keep Saturday’s doubleheader a lot closer than game on Friday. But unfortunately, hey wouldn’t get any closer losing the first game of their doubleheader 20-5 as Erskine pounded out 23 more hits this game. After giving up a combined 43 hits to the Flying Fleet in the first two games the Crusaders seemed desperate to keep the high powered offense of Erskine from getting away from them.
Erskine started the final game of the series strong, scoring three runs in the first and five runs in the second to go into the third inning up 8-0. The Crusaders mounted what looked to be a furious comeback scoring six runs in the top of the third inning to cut the lead to 8-6. The Crusaders still did not have an answer on defense as the Flying Fleet added seven more runs in the next three innings and finished with 20 hits to sweep the season series against the Crusaders 15-6.
This was the largest margin of combined defeat than the Crusaders had all last season. It is unclear whether this may be a sign of things to come or just early season jitters.
“This is the best team that Erskine has ever had and they should compete at the national level again this year,” head coach Travis Henson said on ngcrusaders.com. “Our team got a look at the level we need to get to. We took a different take on opening the season with such a great team. It’ll give us a good indicator of the hard work it will take to get there.”
North Greenville’s next game will be at home against Limestone College today at 2 p.m.