MOUNT OLIVE – Coach Taylor Furlough’s Chowan University baseball team weren’t sitting idle for the entire three weeks between winning the school’s first Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association (CIAA) championship and the NCAA Selection Show coming Sunday night.

However, they showed there was a little rust on those aluminum bats as the University of Mt. Olive pounded out 15 hits, good for 13 runs and scored a 13-4 victory here at Scarborough Field.

Chowan and Mount Olive met earlier back on April 19 and 20 and split the two-game series. The Hawks grabbed an 8-4 win in the opening game before falling to the Trojans 16-2 in game two.

Mt. Olive put up a run in the bottom of the first and another in their half of the fourth for a 2-0 lead headed to the seventh.

In the top half of the seventh Josh Martin opened with a double followed by a base hit by Marvin Harrell, Jr. to put Hawk runners on the corners. Aaron Akers then reached on a fielder’s choice allowing Martin to score and Harrell, Jr. to move to third, where he would score later on a wild pitch to knot the game at 2-2. But it didn’t last as two Mt. Olive runs upped the Trojan lead to 4-2 after seven complete.

Aaron Flanagan homered, his eighth of the year, in the top of the eighth, but by the bottom of the frame Furlough had used three pitchers, and he would use four more as the Trojans scored nine runs – four before the Hawks could register their first out.

Chowan would get one more run in the top of the ninth when Akers reached, advanced to second on a wild pitch, and scored after a pair of groundouts; the last one good for an RBI from Will Gurganus to make the nine run final.

Flanagan was 3-for-5 including a homer. Akers, Harrell, Jr., Martin and Zach Cooper had two safeties each for Chowan’s 11 hits.

Scott Edge – the fourth pitcher used – took the loss. Matt Kaplan, Cody Smith, Bobby Mason, Will Edwards, Carter Siweck, and Troy Bettinger also got in some work.

Chowan dips to 26-24 and both teams have earned an automatic bid to NCAA Division II regional play after winning their respective conference titles and await news of location and seeding for their postseason competition.