TIGERVILLE, SC — The No. 17 Bellarmine University baseball team was swept in a Sunday doubleheader at No. 8 North Greenville.
The Knights (0-3) fell 2-0 and 9-6 to the Crusaders (5-1-1). North Greenville swept the three-game series.
Game 1: NGU 2, Bellarmine 0 (
HTM BOX SCORE)
This contest resumed with two outs in the bottom of the first inning after being postponed Saturday due to snow. The Crusaders were able to build a 2-0 lead on senior left-hander
Shane Barringer (0-1) before the stoppage in play.
Jacob Nagel took the mound Sunday for Bellarmine. In an outing where the setup was like a start but was technically long relief, the senior right-hander was outstanding, firing 5.1 scoreless innings while allowing three hits and no walks with five strikeouts.
Bellarmine couldn't get much going against Seth Chestnut, who took the mound Sunday and tossed 6.0 scoreless innings. Junior left fielder
Matt Higgins went 2 for 2 with a double, and junior shortstop
Clayton Mehlbauer added a double.
Game 2: NGU 9, Bellarmine 6 (
HTM BOX SCORE)
Bellarmine jumped out to a 5-0 lead in the tail end, but North Greenville trimmed its deficit to one after six innings and overtook the Knights with a five-run seventh.
Junior catcher
Alex Cleverly had a whale of a game. He gunned down four would-be base stealers and stroked two doubles.
Senior third baseman
Josh Finerty went 3 for 5 with two doubles, three runs scored and two RBIs, while junior right fielder
Jacob Mulcahy and junior second baseman
Justin Rouse had two hits apiece. Mehlbauer collected three RBIs.
Senior right-hander
Deylen Miley had a strong start, throwing 4.0 shutout innings before allowing a two-run homer in the fifth. Miley allowed two earned runs on five hits with five strikeouts.
Brady West was the player who hit the two-run dinger for North Greenville. That seemed to awaken the Crusaders' offense, which added two more runs in the sixth and then exploded for five in the seventh to take the lead.
Finerty doubled and scored on Mehlbauer's ground out in the second for a 1-0 lead. Finerty then clubbed a two-run double in the fifth and Mehlbauer followed with a two-run single for a 5-0 advantage. The Knights scored all four of their runs in the frame with two outs.
Bellarmine will play a three-game series Friday and Saturday at Union (Tenn.) University.
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