Hawks sweep Falcons

Published 2:48 pm Thursday, April 26, 2018

MURFREESBORO – Chowan University’s baseball team completed a weekend four-game sweep of St. Augustine’s University – winning both games Saturday and Sunday – to finish their season on a winning note and with a winning record, 21-18-1.

It was the perfect senior send-off with Saturday’s Senior Day celebration and more senior heroics the next day.

Saturday, senior lefty Cody Smith closed out his college career by hurling a five-hit, 13- strikeout, complete game shutout, 7-0, for his fifth win of the year in Game-One.  In the second contest, the Hawks came from behind to win 5-4 as senior Harry Markotay completed the day tallying four hits including a double and a triple.

Sunday, Chowan won the twinbill by scores of 6-2 and 13-2.

In the first contest Sunday the Hawks hit three home runs and Josh Vincent had a four-hit, six strikeout complete-game performance for his fifth win of the year.

Senior Julian Lopez swiped four bases over the weekend, two on Sunday in the first inning, giving him 26 on the year, a new Chowan single-season record.

Chowan scored a run in each of the first four innings: senior Marquise Lanier led off with his seventh and final home run of the year for a 1-0 lead in the first.  In the second, Tyler Jones walked and later scored on an error, while in the third inning Nick Rose’s sacrifice fly RBI plated the third Chowan run of the game. Jones’ solo home run in the fourth made it a 4-0 Hawks lead after four innings.

St. Augustine’s halved that lead with a pair of runs in the top of the sixth that made it 4-2. In the bottom of the inning, Markotay blasted his eighth round-tripper of the season and last in Blue-and-White, a two-run shot that made it 6-2, Hawks.  The Falcons got a man aboard with a hit batsman, but a groundout ended the first game.

Chowan had six hits; two by Markotay and one each from Robert Williams, Trenton Lee, Jones and Lanier.

In the second game, the Hawks exploded for six runs in the second to win by 11, 13-2.

Rose’s RBI single got Chowan a 1-0 lead after one inning, and in the second Jones and Trent Brosdahl scored on a wild pitches, Lopez had a bases-loaded walk, Williams a two-run single, and Rose connected on a sacrifice fly. It was 7-0, Hawks, after two.

After the Falcons got two in the top of the third, Chowan got four runs in the bottom of the inning on two-run doubles by Rose and Jones.

Chowan’s final two runs came in the bottom of the fourth on Rose’s sac-fly and Lopez scoring on a wild pitch for a 13-2 lead.  The Falcons left a man on in the top of the fifth before a fly out ended the series.

Ryan Gallaccio threw a five-inning complete game four-hitter with four strikeouts.

Chowan had 11 hits, three by Lanier in his final appearance at Hawkins Field; two each by Rose, Williams, and Jones; and one apiece by Lopez and Bailey Lipscomb.