March 7, 2012

Box Score

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - Samford right fielder Brandon Miller went 3-for-5 with a double and two RBI to lead the Bulldog baseball team to a 5-2 win over in-state rival Jacksonville State Wednesday evening at Joe Lee Griffin Field.

Samford improves to 9-4 with the win, while Jacksonville State drops to 2-8. The Bulldogs sweep the two-game season series with the Gamecocks.

"I was really pleased with the way we swung the bats tonight," Samford head coach Casey Dunn said. "It was kind of a crazy game. You look up and we had 12 hits and a lot of hard-hit outs. They played their outfield really deep and it was successful for them because we had four or five balls that normally would be in the gap or at least down for hits that were caught."

As a team, Samford pounded out 12 hits in the win, while holding Jacksonville State to five hits.

Behind Miller for Samford, Saxon Butler went 2-for-4 at the plate. C.K. Irby, Austin Allison and Matt Frederick drove in one run each for the Bulldogs.

Tyler Vanderheiden (1-0) pitched one hitless inning of relief to earn his first win of the season. Irby came in for the last inning and retired the Gamecocks in order to earn his second save of the season.

For Jacksonville State, Sam Eberle went 2-for-4 with a home run and an RBI. Ben Waldrip also homered in a 1-for-2 performance for JSU. Travis Stout (0-1) pitched three innings in relief, giving up one run on two hits to take the loss for the Gamecocks.

Samford jumped on top first with two runs in the bottom of the second inning. Irby singled to left-center field to drive in Miller, who had singled to lead off the inning, for the first run of the game. With the bases loaded, Allison singled to left field to drive in Christiaan Durdaller, who had singled earlier in the inning, for a 2-0 Samford lead.

Jacksonville State came back to tie the score with two runs in the top of the fourth inning. Eberle and Waldrip led the inning off with back-to-back home runs to tie the game at 2-2.

Samford took the lead for good with a run in the bottom of the seventh inning. Butler singled with one out to get things going. Miller then doubled to left-center field to drive in Frederick, who came in as a pinch runner for Butler, to give Samford a 3-2 lead.

The Bulldogs added two runs in the bottom of the eighth inning to make the final score 5-2. With two outs and no one on base, Kevin Putkonen and Brad Moss drew back-to-back walks. Frederick then singled down the left-field line to drive in Putkonen to give Samford a two-run lead. Miller then singled to center field to drive in Moss with the game's final run.

Samford will return to action on Friday when the Bulldogs open their first Southern Conference series of the season with a game at UNC Greensboro. The Bulldogs and the Spartans will play Friday at 5 p.m. (CT), Saturday at 12 p.m. (CT) and Sunday again at 12 p.m. (CT).