LOUISVILLE, Ky. — The Bellarmine University baseball team clearly embraced the opportunity to return home.
In an Atlantic Sun Conference series opener Friday at Knights Field, Bellarmine walloped four home runs and had a powerful response after Lipscomb rallied to take the lead in an 11-9 victory over the Bisons.
The contest marked Bellarmine's first at home after a monumental six-state, 13-game road swing. It had been nearly a month since the team trotted out on Knights Field for a game.
And Bellarmine was clearly glad to be back.
What morphed into a back-and-forth affair between the Knights (13-36, 8-17 ASUN) and the Bisons (23-25, 15-10) culminated in a tense top of the ninth. The Bisons had the bases loaded when junior right-hander
Oliver Ward sealed the win after getting a check-swing strikeout of Kai Holm.
It was the first save of Ward's career in a Bellarmine uniform and preserved senior right-hander
Blake Donnan's second win of the season.
After launching three home runs in its 19-9 midweek romp at Morehead State, Bellarmine followed by going deep four times against Lipscomb, its second-highest tally of the year. In fact, half of the Knights' hits were long balls, with the bang-for-their-buck output helping mitigate being outhit by nine by the Bisons.
Two of the homers came in the seventh after Bellarmine entered the bottom half trailing 9-8 following a four-run top half by Lipscomb. Junior
Joey Milto cranked his second long ball of the contest, a solo shot that knotted it at 9.
After a crucial error by the Bisons helped extend the inning, junior
Charlie Rife hammered a go-ahead, two-run homer for an 11-9 lead. It was Rife's fourth round-tripper of the season.
Senior
Casey Sorg went deep for the second straight game, smacking his eighth homer of the season on a solo shot in the second for a 6-2 lead. He moved into seventh in program history with his 27th career round-tripper.
After Lipscomb chopped the advantage to 6-5, Milto lifted the first of his two long balls with a two-run blast in the fourth. He doubled his home-run output and now has four this season while going 3-for-5 with three runs scored.
Bellarmine jumped out to a 5-2 lead in the first inning. Junior
Luke Scales and Milto got things started with consecutive doubles. Lipscomb, which needed to make a late change at starting pitcher, was shaky at the outset on the mound, and the Knights capitalized with a big inning.
The teams will meet at 3 p.m. (ET) Saturday in the second game of the series.
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