BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - The Citadel put together four extra base hits including two home runs in the second and third innings to build a 4-0 lead, and
JP Sears earned the first Southern Conference win of his freshman season as the Bulldogs clinched the series at Samford with a 13-6 victory on Saturday.
The SoCon series win was the first of the season for The Citadel (20-25, 5-12 SoCon) and first in three trips to Birmingham since Samford (24-21, 10-7) joined the conference in 2009. The teams will wrap up the set on Sunday at 1 p.m., and the game can be seen on the SoCon Digital Network.
Steven Hansen matched his career high with three hits including his second home run of the season and
Stephen Windham also had three hits as The Citadel knocked out 16 in the contest.
Austin Mapes blasted his fourth homer and was joined by
Connor Walsh and
Drew Ellis with two hits with Walsh scoring four times.
Mike Deese added three key insurance runs in the eighth when his pinch-hit home run offset a three-run Samford seventh that temporarily cut The Citadel lead to 9-5. The round tripper was Deese's first as a Bulldog.
Sears had two losses and three no-decisions in his first five SoCon starts but worked out of a couple of jams en route to his fifth win of the year. The southpaw allowed six hits and two runs, walked two and struck out five in 5 1/3 innings.
The Citadel jumped out to a 1-0 lead in the second on a double by Windham and RBI ground out by
Ryan Kilgallen. After Sears escaped a two-on, one-out jam in the bottom of the second, Hansen and Mapes launched back-to-back home runs to start the third.
Connor Walsh followed with a triple and scored on a single by Ellis to make it 4-0.
The visiting Bulldogs blew the game open in the fifth against relievers Cole Limbaugh and Caleb Maggio, scoring four times including RBI singles by Ellis, Kilgallen and Hansen and a sacrifice fly by
Jacob Watcher.
Samford threatened to get back in the game in its half of the fifth, loading the bases with nobody out. But Sears calmly got a pop up and then induced Hunter Swilling to roll into a double play to keep the shutout intact. Samford finally broke through in the sixth on a two-run homer by Alex Lee to end Sears' day.
The host Bulldogs scored three times (two unearned) in the seventh to close within four before the Deese home run once again gave The Citadel a comfortable margin.
