Box Score DAVIDSON, N.C. – The Samford baseball team dropped the first game of its Southern Conference series at Davidson, falling by a score of 10-9 Friday night at Wilson Field.
 
"Davidson swung the bats really well tonight," Samford head coach Casey Dunn said. "Some of that is a great job by them and some of it is a poor job by us. They had a lot of two-strike hits. We did a poor job of finishing them off when we got two strikes on them."
 
Samford was led offensively by Drew McWhorter, going 2-for-5 with two RBI. Caleb Bryson went 2-for-4 for the Bulldogs. Hunter Swilling and Heath Quinn each homered for Samford in the loss. Parker Curry (2-2) pitched 1.0 inning of relief, giving up one run on one hit to take the loss on the mound for Samford.
 
For Davidson, Lee Miller went 4-for-4 with a home run and three RBI at the plate. David Daniels went 4-for-5 for the Wildcats. Forrest Brandt went 3-for-5 with three RBI, while Daniel Gerow went 3-for-5 with an RBI. Michael Goldberg (3-2) pitched 1.2 innings, giving up no runs on just one hit to earn the win for Davidson.
 
Davidson jumped on top first with two runs in the bottom of the first inning. After Andrew Pope and Daniels had back-to-back singles to start the inning, Brandt doubled with one out to drive in Pope and Daniels for a 2-0 Davidson lead.
 
Samford came back to tie the score with two runs in the top of the third inning. Swilling led the inning off with a home run to right-center field to make the score 2-1. Bryson then doubled to left field and then moved to third base on a sacrifice bunt by T.J. Dixon. Bryson then scored on a sacrifice fly to right field by Jared Watson to knot the score at 2-2.
 
The Bulldogs took the lead with a run in the top of the fourth inning. With one out in the inning, Quinn hit a solo homer to center field to give Samford a 3-2 lead.
 
Davidson took the lead again with three runs in the bottom of the fourth inning. Miller led the inning off with a home run to tie the score at 3-3. Gerow, Pope and Daniels then delivered three-straight singles to load the bases. Ryan Lowe then walked to drive in Gerow to make the score 4-3. Pope then scored when Brandt reached base on a fielder's choice for a 5-3 Davidson lead.
 
Samford tied the score again with two runs in the top of the fifth inning. Watson singled and later scored on an error for the first run of the inning. Tyler Filliben reached base on a fielder's choice and scored on an error to tie the score at 5-5.
 
Samford took an 8-5 lead with three runs in the top of the sixth inning. Swilling and Bryson both scored on errors for the first two runs of the inning. Damon Waller later doubled to drive in Dixon for a three-run Samford lead.
 
Davidson plated four runs in the bottom of the sixth inning to take a 9-8 lead. Sam Foy singled to drive in Lowe for the first run of the inning. Brandt then scored from third base on a sacrifice fly by Ben Arkin to bring Davidson to within one run. Miller then singled to drive in Nathan Becker and Foy for a 9-8 Davidson lead.
 
Samford came back to tie the score with a run in the top of the eighth inning. Bryson reached base on an error and advanced to second base on the play with one out in the inning. Bryson went to third base on a wild pitch and then scored on a Davidson error to tie the score at 9-9.
 
Davidson scored the game's final run in the bottom of the eighth inning. Brandt led the inning off with a double. Brandt then moved to third base on a sacrifice bunt. Arkin then walked and Miller was intentionally walked to load the bases. Brandt scored from third base when Gerow reached base on an infield single to give Davidson a 10-9 lead.
 
In the top of the ninth inning, Samford got a lead-off single from McWhorter. The Bulldogs, however, were unable to push a run across and the game ended with a 10-9 Davidson win.
 
With the loss, Samford drops to 20-14 overall and 6-4 in Southern Conference play. Davidson improves to 21-9 overall and 11-2 in league games.
 
Samford and Davidson will continue their three-game series with a game Saturday afternoon. The first pitch is scheduled for 1 p.m. (CT). The game can be heard locally on WVSU-FM 91.1, or worldwide on the internet at www.samford.edu/wvsu.