HARROGATE, Tenn. – The Railsplitters scattered 15 hits but that was not enough to keep pace with a torrential offensive output by the No. 10 Catawba Indians, who racked up 17 hits and scored in five of the last six innings to capture an 11-6 win at Lamar Hennon Field on Friday evening.
Five different Lincoln Memorial (10-7, 3-1 SAC) pitchers took a shot at slowing down the red-hot Catawba (14-4, 2-2 SAC) offense, which pushed five runs across in the fourth and three more in the fifth to hand the Railsplitters their first South Atlantic Conference loss of the season.
Ethan Elliott struck out four of the first 10 batters he faced and held the Indians hitless through the first three innings, but allowed nine hits and eight earned runs over the next two frames to fall to 3-2 on the season. The reigning SAC and Southeast Region Pitcher of the Week struck out six and walked one.
In his first appearance since the series opener at Lynn on February 15,
Tyler Adams went 4-for-6 with a double, an RBI and a run to power the LMU offense.
Seth Hunt finished 3-for-5 with an RBI and two runs, while
Chris Salvey stayed red-hot at the plate with a 3-for-4 showing that included an RBI and a walk.
Nate Stinson and
Brent Richey also contributed two hits apiece.
Nine different players produced at least one hit for the Indians. Jeremy Simpson led the way by going 4-for-6 with a home run, while Jackson Raper was 3-for-4 with an RBI and a walk. Robbie Cowie, DJ Laxton and Henderson Lentz also chipped in two hits each.
The Railsplitters pushed the first run across in the bottom of the second inning when Hunt drove home Richey with a two-out RBI single.
Lincoln Memorial threatened to add more in the third when three straight singles from Adams, Salvey and Stinson loaded the bases with no outs. However, an infield pop up and a 5-3 double play kept them off the board.
After being held hitless through the first three innings, Catawba broke through in a big way in the top of the fourth. Three consecutive singles loaded the bases with no outs. Following a strikeout. Lee Poteat drew a walk to tie the game. Cowie then dribbled a seeing-eye single through the right side to score another. Laxton notched the biggest hit of the inning in the next at-bat with a two-run double off the wall in the right-field corner, while Lentz completed the scoring with a sac fly to put the Indians in front 5-1.
A two-out throwing error helped the Railsplitters get a run back in the bottom of the fourth, but Catawba erased that run and added two more to its lead in the top half of the fifth behind a leadoff homer from Simpson and a two-run double into the gap in right center for Cowie.
Raper extended the Catawba lead to 9-2 in the top of the sixth with an RBI single.
In the bottom of that inning, the Railsplitters shrunk the deficit to 9-4 via a two-run double by Stinson down the left-field line, which scored Adams and Hunt after that tandem reached via an error and a hit-by-pitch.
Lentz's RBI single gave the Indians a 10-4 lead in the top of the seventh, while the Railsplitters tacked on two more runs in the bottom half of that inning to close the gap to four runs. Adams and Salvey did the damage in the frame with RBI singles.
However, the Railsplitters wouldn't threaten again, while Catawba added an insurance run in the ninth with a bases-loaded walk.
The Railsplitters and Indians will complete their series with a doubleheader on Saturday. First pitch in game one is set for 1 p.m. at Lamar Hennon Field.
