March 26, 2010

Box Score

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - Samford's David Schulze and Mason Meredeth each hit solo homers and Jonathan Stephens turned in a strong pitching performance to lead the Bulldog baseball team to a 3-2 win over Furman in the first game of a three-game Southern Conference series Friday night at Joe Lee Griffin Field.

Stephens pitched 6.1 innings, giving up just one unearned run on six hits to earn the win and improve his season record to 4-0. Andrew Jones pitched 1.2 scoreless innings in relief, and Lex Rutledge tossed the final inning, giving up just one run to earn his sixth save of the season.

"I thought Jonathan did a great job, he kept the ball down in the zone and got some big ground balls," Samford head coach Casey Dunn said. "He really pitched well, and when he got fatigued, we felt like if we could shorten it to a two or three-inning game with Andrew and Lex we'd be in good shape. Jonathan was able to get us into the seventh inning, but this was just a great job by all three of those guys tonight."

For Samford (12-10, 3-1 SoCon) at the plate, Trey Hayes went 3-for-4 and Tripp Swann was 2-for-4. Meredeth and Schulze each went 1-for-4 with a solo homer. Schulze's home run was his team-leading seventh of the season, while Meredeth's was his fourth of the year.

Furman (8-14, 2-5 SoCon) was led at the plate by Will Owens, going 2-for-4 with a double. Will Muzika and Will Miller drove in a run each for the Paladins. Ian Parry pitched the complete game, giving up three runs on 11 hits to take the loss and fall to 1-2. Parry struck out nine Samford batters while allowing no walks.

"Ian Parry did a heck of a job tonight and kept us off-balance," Dunn said. "I was proud of our guys for, when he did make a couple of mistakes, making him pay because he didn't leave too many up in the zone tonight."

After playing three and a half scoreless innings, Samford put the first run of the game on the scoreboard in the bottom of the fourth inning. Schulze led the inning off with a solo home run to left field to give Samford a 1-0 lead.

In the fifth inning, Samford added another run to make the score 2-0. Meredeth homered to right field for Samford's second run of the game.

Furman came back with a run in the top of the sixth inning to cut the Samford lead to 2-1. Miller hit a sacrifice fly to drive in Aaron Thompkins for Furman's first run of the game.

Samford added an insurance run in the bottom of the eighth inning to push its lead to 3-1. Hayes doubled to right field with one out to get things started for the Bulldogs. With two outs, Michael Johnson singled to drive in Hayes for the eventual game-winning run.

Furman plated one run in the top of the ninth inning to make the final score 3-2. Muzika singled to left field with two outs to drive in Cameron Allmendinger to cut the Samford lead to one run. The Paladins had runners on first and second with two outs, but Rutledge got Thompkins to ground out to second base to end the threat.

The teams will play again Saturday at 1 p.m. Fans can follow the game live on the internet via GameTracker at the link below.

GameTracker For Saturday's Game