NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Lipscomb broke a tie with a three-run sixth inning, and the Bisons held on to defeat the Bellarmine University baseball team 10-7 in an Atlantic Sun Conference series opener Friday at Ken Dugan Field.
Bellarmine (5-16, 1-3 ASUN) scored all seven of its runs over the first four innings. Lipscomb (7-13, 2-2) kept the Knights off the board over the last five frames while collecting 13 hits, three of which were home runs.
Lipscomb's Kai Holm tied the game at 7 with a two-run homer in the fourth and ultimately put the Bisons ahead for good on a solo homer in the sixth. LU added two more runs in the inning to take a 10-7 lead.
Bellarmine did get the tying run to the plate in the ninth with two outs after junior
Joey Milto drew his third walk and junior
Eli Watson had an infield single, but the Bisons' Collin Bosley-Smith followed with a game-ending strikeout.
Freshman
Landon Akers collected three of Bellarmine's nine hits. He led off the game with a single and scored on an RBI single by senior
Casey Sorg, and Milto added a second run after a pickoff attempt went awry.
Lipscomb answered with a five-run bottom half highlighted by Ryan Austin's grand slam, but junior
Charlie Rife swatted his third homer of the season, a solo shot, in the second, and Bellarmine tacked on three more runs in the third on a two-run double by junior
Luke Scales and an RBI single by junior
Brady Morse, the latter propelling the Knights to a 6-5 advantage.
Bellarmine bumped the lead to 7-5 on an RBI single by Milto in the fourth, but the first of Holm's two homers leveled the contest in the bottom half. The final runs of the matchup all came in the bottom of the sixth, when Lipscomb plated three.
Senior right-hander
Mike Sokol had a strong outing in relief for Bellarmine, allowing two earned runs in 4.2 innings pitched.
First pitch in the second game of the series is set for 3 p.m. (ET) Saturday.
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