MACON, Ga. – The Mercer baseball team broke open a close game in the middle innings, pulling away for a 14-5 win over Samford in the first game of a Southern Conference series Thursday night at Mercer's Claude Smith Field.
 
With the loss, Samford drops to 28-23 overall and 13-9 in Southern Conference play. Samford is now eliminated from contention for the SoCon regular-season title and the top seed in next week's SoCon Tournament. Mercer secures at least a share of the regular-season crown as the Bears move to 30-20 overall and 15-6 in league play.
 
T.J. Dixon led Samford at the plate, going 4-for-5. Heath Quinn and Austin Edens went 2-for-5 with an RBI each. Alex Lee and Danny Rodriguez had two hits each. Damon Waller homered in the game for Samford, going 1-for-1 with two RBI. Waller's home run was the 71^st of the season for Samford, setting a new school record. The old record of 70 was set by the 2010 team.
 
Alex Ledford (7-5) pitched 4.1 innings, giving up six runs, just four earned, on seven hits. Ledford struck out two batters and walked two. Mark Donham and Cole Limbaugh also pitched in the game for Samford.
 
For Mercer, Devin Bonin went 4-for-5 with an RBI. Kyle Lewis went 2-for-5 with a home run and three RBI. Charlie Madden went 2-for-2 with a home run and six RBI. Howard Joe went 2-for-5 with an RBI for the Bears.
 
Eric Nyquist (7-2) pitched 7.2 innings, giving up five runs on 12 hits to earn the win on the mound for Mercer. Nyquist struck out seven batters, while allowing no walks. Mitchell Wade, Austin Lord and Ben Lumsden split the final 1.1 innings for the Bears.
 
Samford jumped on top first with two runs in the top of the first inning. Dixon singled and then stole second base to start the game. Hunter Swilling the singled, moving Dixon to third base. Quinn then singled to drive in Dixon for the game's first run. Edens then singled to drive in Swilling for a 2-0 Samford lead.
 
Mercer came back with two runs in the bottom of the first inning to knot the score at 2-2. Matt Meeder reached base on a Samford error to lead off the inning. Bonin then singled, moving Meeder to third base. Meeder then scored when Lewis grounded out to third base. Bonin scored the final run of the inning when Danny Edgeworth grounded out to second base.
 
Mercer took the lead for good with four runs in the bottom of the fifth inning. Madden drove in two runs in the inning, while Nate Moorhouse and Joe drove in a run each as the Bears took a 6-2 lead.
 
Samford came back with one run in the top of the sixth to cut the Mercer lead to 6-3. Rodriguez doubled to lead off the inning and later scored on a sacrifice fly by Frankie Navarrete to close Samford to within three runs of Mercer.
 
Mercer then plated two runs in the bottom of the sixth inning and three more in the seventh to push its lead to 11-3. In the sixth inning, Lewis hit a two-run homer to make the score 8-3. In the seventh inning, Meeder, Bonin and Madden drove in a run each for an eight-run Mercer lead.
 
Samford scored two runs in the top of the eighth inning to make the score 11-5. Waller hit a two-run home run to right-center field for Samford's fourth and fifth runs of the contest.
 
The Bears plated three runs in the bottom of the eighth to push their lead to 14-5. Madden hit a three-run homer to give Mercer a nine-run advantage.
 
The teams will continue their series with a game Friday at 5 p.m. (CT). The game can be heard locally on WVSU-FM 91.1, or worldwide on the internet at www.samford.edu/wvsu. The contest can also be viewed online via the SoCon Digital Network at www.socondigitalnetwork.com/samford.