Baseball begins long road trip, losing streak hits six in a row
Posted by The Skyliner on April 22nd, 2009Cory Guinn
Staff Writer
North Greenville began a five game road trip on April 14 when the team traveled to Greeneville, Tenn., to take on Tusculum College in a doubleheader. The Crusaders continued their strong hitting, but their pitching was not as strong as it has been and NGU dropped both games by scores of 5-1 and 11-5.
In game one, Tusculum pitcher Taylor Rakes pitched a four-hitter and North Greenville’s offense was unable to get any momentum going. Derek Fulmer, freshman undecided, led NGU going 2-for-3 from the plate including a third inning double that drove in the only run of the game for the Crusaders. Rand Stegall, junior business, scored the run for NGU and also stole a base in the game.
In the second game head coach Travis Henson allowed reliever Drew Provence, freshman marketing, to start the first game of his college career. Provence, who struck out four batters in the game, pitched well through the first four innings, and NGU took a four-run lead into the bottom half of the fifth. Provence, not used to pitching for long periods of time, tired quickly and the Tusculum bats heated up scoring six runs in the inning and four more in the six to take control and come away win the victory.
“We have shown a lot of improvement on offense,” Henson said of his team’s effort against a tough Tusculum team. “Devin Vance pitched a great first game but just had a little bit of control problems. We also decided to start Drew Provence in game two and he had a lead going into the late innings, so we were proud of his effort. We also made some very good defensive plays and shown poise in some tough spots.”
Fulmer once again had a strong game and finished 2-for-5 from the plate. Tyler Callicutt, junior accounting, had a double in the game and went 2-for-5 and Anthony Foulk, freshman sports management, was 2-for-3 with an RBI. Stegall went 1-for-2 and scored a run.
“The team is working extremely hard,” Stegall, who reached base six times in the two games, said. “Hopefully all of this hard work day in and day out will pay off for the postseason and we can make a run in the NCCAA. Right now though, we are just focusing on our next game.”
On April 20 North Greenville (8-36) continued the road trip with a game against Catawba College. The Indians’ scored five runs in the second inning and four in the third as they defeated NGU 13-7.
Fulmer had another strong game finishing 3-for-4 from the plate with four RBI including a third inning home run. Chad Drosieko, junior elementary education, had a solo home run in the sixth inning and Rob Dobbins, freshman secondary education, had a pinch hit two-run home run in the ninth.
The Crusaders played against Mars Hill last night and their next game will be tonight against North Georgia at 6 p. m. North Greenville’s next home game will be April 24 against Atlanta Christian at 3 p.m. in Tigerville.
Nice blog. Can’t wait to start my own blog.
We just really couldn’t stop them defensively enough to get to where we wanted to go. They shot the ball well. They played well, … We made some uncharacteristically bad turnovers in this game that really hurt us.