ATLANTA – After splitting Saturday's doubleheader, the Centre baseball team once again faced the Oglethorpe Stormy Petrels in a twin bill. Both games featured late comebacks from three-run deficits, with Oglethorpe winning the first game 6-3 and Centre rallying in the ninth to take the second game 7-6.
GAME 1 RECAP
- Centre took advantage of Oglethorpe errors early on as
Karson Thompson reached on a Petrel miscue to lead off the game and ended up on third.
Patrick Hope ripped a base hit to right field to put Centre on the board first.
- In the second inning,
Jamie Laframboise led off and wound up on second after another error, eventually scoring on a bunt single by
Joshua Cunningham.
- Things calmed down until the fifth when
Dillon Di Iorio led off with a bunt single and made his way to second on an error. A triple by
Jake Holloway gave the Colonels a 3-1 lead and
Chris Esselman's double put the Colonels up by three runs.
- In the sixth, the Oglethorpe bats came alive as the Petrels rallied for six runs on six hits, two errors and a walk. The Colonels put runners on second and third in the seventh and put the tying run at the plate, but couldn't get the runs across the board.
GAME 2 RECAP
- The Colonels once again struck first in the second game with a two-out rally. Hope and Holloway hit consecutive singles and Esselman drove them home with a three-run blast to right field.
- The score stayed at 3-0 until the Petrels responded with a two-out rally of their own in the seventh, scoring four runs. They tacked on two more in the eighth to make it 6-3.
- In the ninth, Di Iorio came through with a pinch hit solo homer to cut the deficit to two. Following a single by Thompson and an error by Oglethorpe that allowed Hope to reach, Esselman delivered in the clutch again with a two-out, two-run double to tie the score.
Austin Sharkey's base hit capped off the four-run rally and gave Centre a 7-6 lead.
- After moving to the mound in the eighth inning, Thompson retired the first two batters in the ninth before Oglethorpe put runners on the corners. Laframboise came in to relieve Thompson and struck out Oglethorpe's Andrew Noack to secure the dramatic comeback win.
INSIDE THE BOX SCORES
- In addition to his 6 RBIs across the doubleheader, Esselman got the start in game 1 and allowed just one run on three hits while striking out five in four innings of work.
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Hogan Brownley started the second game and allowed just two baserunners while striking out four batters in three innings.
- After missing the first month of the season,
Carson Werrmann made his first appearance of the season in relief of Brownley and struck out three in two innings while only surrendering one walk and one hit.
