BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – The Samford baseball team completed its sweep of the Murray State Racers with a 14-6 win Sunday afternoon at Joe Lee Griffin Field.
"I thought we were good enough offensively and we were good enough on the mound, but we just didn't defend the field very well," Samford head coach
Casey Dunn said. "We made some costly errors that led to runs for them. But, I thought we pitched threw it okay. I thought our bullpen guys threw well and I thought Parker (Curry) competed. There were definitely more positives than negatives."
For Samford offensively,
Richard Greene went 2-for-4 with a home run and four RBI.
Frankie Navarrete went 2-for-3 with a double and two RBI.
Heath Quinn went 2-for-5 with two RBI.
Hunter Swilling and
T.J. Dixon had two hits and an RBI each.
Robert Perteet drove in two runs in a 1-for-2 performance.
Parker Curry (5-3) pitched 5.0 innings, giving up three runs, all unearned, on nine hits to earn the win on the mound for Samford. Curry struck out four batters and allowed no walks.
Philip Flach,
Mark Donham and
Andres Gracia also saw time on the mound for Samford.
Murray State was led at the plate by Anthony Bayus, going 3-for-4 with an RBI. Derek Yoder, Matthew Johnson and Nick Moore had two hits each for the Racers. Brandon Hicks (2-2) pitched 1.0 inning, giving up four runs on three hits to take the loss on the mound for the Racers.
Murray State jumped on top first with two runs in the top of the third inning. Tyler Lawrence and Moore drove in a run each in the inning to give the Racers a 2-0 lead.
Samford came back to tie the score with two runs in the bottom of the third inning. Swilling doubled to drive in Navarrete for the first run of the inning. Swilling later scored on a Murray State error to knot the score at 2-2.
The Racers took the lead again with a run in the top of the fourth inning. Bayus singled to drive in Rick Linton for a 3-2 Murray State lead.
Samford took the lead for good with four runs in the bottom of the fourth inning.
Danny Rodriguez walked with the bases loaded to drive in
Austin Edens for the game-tying run. Greene singled to drive in
Alex Lee with the go-ahead run. Navarrete later singled to drive in Rodriguez and
Damon Waller for a 6-3 Samford lead.
The Bulldogs broke the game open with seven runs in the bottom of the sixth inning. Greene hit a three-run home run, Perteet had a two-run double, and Quinn hit a two-run single in the inning as Samford pushed its lead to 13-3.
Murray State cut the Samford lead to 13-5 with two runs in the top of the seventh inning. Kipp Moore and Taylor Mathews each scored on a Samford error to bring Murray State to within eight runs of Samford.
Samford added a run in the bottom of the eighth inning, and Murray State plated one final run in the top of the ninth to make the final score 14-6. In the bottom of the eighth, Dixon singled to drive in
Grant Colton for Samford's final run of the game. In the top of the ninth, Matthew Johnson scored on a wild pitch for the game's final run.
With the sweep, Samford improves to 17-17 on the season. Murray state drops to 14-22 with the loss.
Samford will return to action Tuesday evening when the Bulldogs play host to in-state rival Troy. The game is scheduled for a 6 p.m. start from Joe Lee Griffin Field.
