April 23, 2008

Box Score

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - The Samford baseball team snapped its nation-leading 16-game home win streak with a 16-8 loss to UAB Wednesday night at Joe Lee Griffin Field.

Samford drops to 24-15 with the loss. UAB improves to 18-22.

Michael Marseco led Samford at the plate, going 3-for-5 with an RBI. Marseco extended his career-long hit streak to 24 games. The streak is tied for the longest of any Ohio Valley Conference player this season.

Tripp Swann homered for the second-straight game, going 1-for-2 with three RBI. Bill Whitehead, Michael Rutledge and Wayne Miller had two hits each for Samford. Mark Lewallyn, who earned the win in Tuesday night's win over Auburn, took the loss, pitching 1.2 innings, giving up four runs on four hits.

For UAB, Luke Stewart went 4-for-5 with a triple, a home run and five RBI. Allen Aubin also homered for the Blazers. Jonathan Merritt was 3-for-6, and Ryan Keedy 3-for-4 with two RBI. Robert Brewster tossed 2.0 innings, giving up no runs on two hits to pick up the win for the Blazers.

After UAB plated a run in the first inning and two more in the third, Samford came back with seven runs in the bottom of the fourth inning to take a 7-3 lead. Swann drove in the first three runs with his third home run of the season. Michael Johnson later drove in two runs and Whitehead and Marseco drove in a run each to give Samford the four-run lead.

UAB scored two runs in the top of the fifth inning and Samford plated one in the bottom of the inning to make the score 8-5. UAB took the lead for good with four runs in the sixth inning. Stewart drove in three of the runs with his three-run homer, and Keedy drove in the other run to give the Blazers a 9-8 lead.

UAB broke the game open with seven runs in the eighth inning to make the final score 16-8. Aubin homered to drive in three of the runs. Keedy, Stewart and Nick Crawford drove in a run each for the Blazers in the inning.

Samford will return to action on Friday when the Bulldogs play host to Eastern Illinois in an Ohio Valley Conference doubleheader, beginning at 1 p.m. The teams will also play a single game Sunday at 1 p.m.