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Furman Trims UNC Greensboro 5-4
April 28, 2006
GREENSBORO, N.C. -- Will Stembridge's two-out RBI bunt single in the ninth inning lifted Furman to a 5-4 win over UNC-Greensboro in Southern Conference baseball action Friday evening.
Stembridge's decisive hit off Spartan reliever Wes McCall plated Case Cassedy, who had doubled with one out and advanced to third on a passed ball.
Paladin reliever Nick Hollstegge yielded a leadoff in single in the ninth to David Adams, who stole second. After the Spartans' Jermaine Mitchell struck out, Adams advanced to third on a passed ball, but Hollstegge stranded the potential tying run by getting Guy Welsh on a groundout to third and Greg Matson on a fly to center to seal the win for Furman (27-12, 13-3 SoCon). The victory marked the 20th triumph in the last 23 games for the Paladins against SoCon opposition dating back to last year.
Hollstegge (1-0) earned his first win of the season after working the final 1 1/3 innings and yielding two hits while striking out one. The Paladin junior righthander had his string of eight no-hit innings covering his last seven appearances snapped when the Spartans' Greg Feltes singled with two outs in the eighth.
The loss went to Clay Gibson (2-2), who gave up Cassedy's one-out double in the ninth.
Furman, the SoCon's top hitting team, collected 12 hits in the contest, including three by Cassedy, who on Tuesday was named National College Baseball Writers Association Hitter-of-the-Week. A.J. Daviduk, Ben Terry, and Andrew Greene contributed two hits apiece to the Paladin attack.
David Adams and Guy Welsh combined for three hits each for UNCG, which managed 12 hits against Paladin pitching.
The Spartans grabbed a 1-0 lead in the first on Guy Welsh's RBI single off Matt Klinker.
Furman scored three runs on four hits in the third inning against Spartan starter Nick Starnes. Case Cassedy's RBI single scored Tony Maccani to tie the game at 1-1. A.J. Davidiuk the followed with a two-run single scoring Andrew Greene and Ben Terry for a 3-1 lead.
The Paladins made it 4-1 an inning later after Maccani doubled to lead off and came home on Terry's two-out infield single.
UNC Greensboro narrowed the Paladin advantage to 4-3 with two runs in the seventh on Welsh's two-out, two-run single off reliever Ryan Hodinka.
Brandon Harvey opened the Spartan eighth with a single off Furman's David Mitchell and advanced to second. With two outs, he came around to score on Greg Feltes' RBI single off Hollstegge, but Feltes was cut down trying to advance to second to end the frame.
Game two of the three-game series is set for 1:00 p.m. Saturday.
