Charleston, W. Va – Charleston Baseball banged out 14 hits in the first of three games against Ohio Dominican on Friday afternoon, winning 10-5 in the series opener.
Ethan Soderna ran into some early trouble on the mound for the Golden Eagles. Ohio Dominican came out in the first inning and put up three runs on two hits and two errors on the Charleston side. He would settle in nicely however, allowing just one unearned run over the next 4 innings while surrendering two walks.
The offense answered in the bottom of the first thanks to some two out magic.
Kyle West tripled to right field with two away, his first triple of the 2023 season. After a walk from
Drew Klaserner, red hot
JD Armstrong singled home West from third, picking up his first of three hits on the afternoon.
UC used a big third inning to jump out to a 6-3 lead and never looked back. In the third
Brayden McCallister led off the inning with a single up the middle before
Tyler Dellerman was hit by a pitch, setting the stage for Kyle West. West blasted a 2-1 offspeed pitch over the fence in center for his first home run of the season while giving Charleston their first lead of the game. Klaserner and Armstrong struck again with back-to-back singles and both were brought home on a
Giano Zuccaro single to right. The Golden Eagles scored five runs on six hits while leaving two on base in the inning.
The Panthers added one run in the top of the 5
th inning to bring the score to 6-4. Dellerman would tally his first '
Delly Bomb' of the season in the bottom of the 6
th inning. The solo blast to left once again gave UC a three run lead.
Klaserner added two more runs in the 7
th on a 2-RBI double to right with the bases loaded. ODU fought back scoring one run in the top of the 8
th and bringing the tying run to bat with two outs, but left the bases loaded and would be unable to recover.
Zuccaro put the exclamation mark on the win in the 8
th, hitting the third home run of the day for Charleston, a solo shot straight away right field.
Once again, the bullpen did some heavy lifting for the Golden Eagles.
Campbell Spradling,
Zane Lattig, and
Caleb Rush threw a combined four innings, allowing only one earned run on three hits while striking out three.
Soderna ended his outing working 5.0 innings with six strikeouts, three walks, with only two of the four runs he allowed being earned.
Six Charleston hitters had multi-hit days. McCallister, West, Zuccaro, Klaserner, and Martinez all had two hits. Armstrong ended the afternoon with three hits including a double, an RBI and one run. Dellerman tallied three runs including a home run, a walk and a hit by pitch. West had three RBI while scoring two runs. McCallister scored twice and stole a base and Klaserner had two RBI and scored a run. Zuccaro ended the game with three RBI, a run scored and a walk.
The Golden Eagles will play two games tomorrow to close out the series with first pitch set for 12 pm.
#WingsUp