The SAU Knights baseball team beat the visiting Carolina University Bruins 14-1 on Tuesday afternoon at Clark Field in Laurinburg. The 14 runs were the most the Knights have scored in a game this season.
Andrew Smolar | The Laurinburg Exchange
The St. Andrews pitching staff allowed just three Carolina hits in the blowout victory.
Andrew Smolar | The Laurinburg Exchange
A conference series awaits the Knights as Truett McConnell will come to town for three games at Clark Field over Friday and Saturday.
Andrew Smolar | The Laurinburg Exchange
LAURINBURG —The St. Andrews Knights baseball team rebounded from getting swept over the weekend by Reinhardt with a resounding 14-1 victory over the Carolina University Bruins on Tuesday afternoon at Clark Field. The Knights improve to 6-5 with the win while Carolina falls to 1-6 with their third straight loss. The game was done after the top of the seventh inning because St. Andrews was up by at least 10 runs.
Coming off of a tough sweep at the hands of still undefeated Reinhardt (14-0), Head Coach Andy Fox was curious as to how his team would come out against the Bruins. Needless to say, he was thrilled with the effort in all phases.
“I was interested to see how our team would respond after getting swept this weekend by Reinhardt,” Fox said. “It was a tough weekend for us so I was pleased to see us come out today and handle our business.”
The Knights quickly took the lead in their half of the first inning on a two-RBI double from Aiden Wilson, scoring Cesar Morillo and Caden Santucci. Adrian Ojea added another run in the bottom of the second as he led off the inning with a double, advanced to third on a flyout and eventually stole home. After a scoreless third inning on both sides, the Bruins finally got on the board thanks to a sacrifice fly from Paxton Tucker that scored Robbie Smith.
Any hope Carolina might’ve gained from that run was quickly extinguished when St. Andrews sent 13 batters to plate in their half of the fourth inning and scored eight runs on four hits. Josh Zambito, Wilson, Garrett Wolff, Ojea and Michael Royston all had at least one RBI in the inning. Ojea would add a two-RBI single in the bottom of the fifth while Jack Carela drew a bases loaded walk in the bottom of the sixth to give St. Andrews the most runs scored in a game to this point in the season, with their previous high being 12 runs in a 12-9 win over Union Commonwealth back on Feb. 14.
Ojea went 3-3 from the plate with four RBIs, three runs and drew a walk. Wilson went 2-3 with two RBIs, two runs and also drew a walk. St. Andrews as a team drew 13 walks in the game, something Fox was happy to see and admitted that the Knights should win games when able to do that.
“When you do that you better win those games,” Fox said. “Not being overly aggressive, taking what they’re giving us and building some big innings for us led to that result.”
Pitching wise, Bryton Williams started the game and pitched three innings of hitless ball and didn’t allow any runs while striking out two batters. As a staff, the Knights held Carolina to just three hits in the contest.
St. Andrews will return to conference action with a three-game home set on Friday and Saturday (doubleheader) against Truett McConnell. Friday’s contest will start at 2 p.m.
The Bears will enter their series with St. Andrews at 4-10 (1-5 against conference opponents) after beating Bob Jones University in a 4-3 final at home on Tuesday. Despite the record, Fox is expecting a tough series at Clark Field, noting some different tendencies about the way the Bears play.
“Truett is a scrappy team and they play a unique style,” Fox said. “It’s going to be a hard fought series from the start, we got to come and be ready to play.”