SOCON TOURNAMENT BRACKETMACON, Ga. – The Samford baseball team scored 17 runs on 22 hits and hit five home runs on its way to a 17-7 win at Mercer in the final game of a Southern Conference series Saturday evening at Claude Smith Field.
With the win, Samford wraps up its regular season with a record of 29-24 overall and 14-10 in Southern Conference play. Samford earns the No. 2 seed for next week's SoCon Tournament, and the Bulldogs will take on seventh-seeded Western Carolina Wednesday at 8 a.m. (CT) at Riley Park in Charleston, S.C. Mercer is the regular season SoCon champion with a mark of 31-21 overall and 16-7 in league action. Mercer, as the No. 1 seed, will play Wednesday at 4 p.m. (CT) against the winner of Tuesday's play-in game between The Citadel and East Tennessee State.
Samford's five home runs in the game give the Bulldogs a school-record 77 for the season. The Bulldogs currently lead the nation in both home runs and homers per game.
Individually for Samford,
Alex Lee homered twice, going 3-for-6 with six RBI.
Heath Quinn,
Brandon Powell and
Richard Greene also homered in the game for Samford.
T.J. Dixon went 5-for-6 with a double in the win.
Hunter Swilling went 4-for-6 with three doubles and two RBI.
Austin Edens went 4-for-4 at the plate for the Bulldogs.
Jesse Travis (1-2) pitched 2.0 hitless innings in relief to earn the win on the mound for Samford. The Bulldogs used eight pitchers in the game.
Eric Wright,
Jared Brasher,
Philip Flach,
Jake Greer,
Devan Traglia,
Caleb Maggio and
Andres Gracia also pitched in the game for Samford.
For Mercer, Matt Meeder went 2-for-5 with a triple and two RBI. Jackson Ware and Jose Hernandez had two hits and an RBI each. Danny Edgeworth went 2-for-4 at the plate for the Bears. Devin Bonin homered in the game for Mercer, going 1-for-4 with one RBI. Ryan Askew (4-4) pitched a third of an inning, surrendering six runs on four hits to take the loss on the mound for Mercer.
Samford jumped on top first with six runs in the top of the first inning. In the inning,
Frankie Navarrete drove in two runs. Lee, Powell,
Danny Rodriguez and Greene drove in a run each for the Bulldogs as Samford grabbed a 6-0 lead.
Mercer came back with two runs in the bottom of the first inning to cut the Samford lead to 6-2. Bonin hit a solo home run for Mercer's first run of the inning. Ware later drove in a run to bring Mercer to within four runs of Samford.
The Bulldogs added four runs in the top of the second inning to push their lead to 10-2. Powell hit a two-run home run in the inning, while Quinn and Lee hit a solo homer each to give Samford an eight-run advantage.
Samford added to its lead with a run in the top of the fifth inning. Swilling led the inning off with a double, and later scored on a ground out by Lee for an 11-2 Samford lead.
The Bulldogs plated another run in the top of the sixth inning to make the score 12-2. With one out in the inning, Greene hit a solo home run for a 10-run Samford advantage.
Samford added five runs in the top of the eighth inning to push its lead to 17-2. Lee hit a three-run home run, while Swilling hit a two-run double to stretch Samford's lead to 15 runs.
Mercer came back with five more runs in the bottom of the eighth inning to make the final score 17-7. Meeder drove in two runs with a triple in the inning. Nate Moorhouse, Hernandez and Collin Snider drove in a run each in the inning for the Bears.
