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GREENVILLE, S.C. -- The Samford University baseball team was outhit 18-4 on Thursday and suffered a 14-4 defeat at the hands of the Western Carolina Catamounts in a second-round matchup of the 2016 Southern Conference Championship being held at Fluor Field.
 
"We didn't swing the bats well all night," said Samford head coach Casey Dunn. "Thankfully, Western Carolina gave us some runs early and then we committed those two costly errors and gave them a seven-run inning. They were able to capitalize on the opportunities. They jumped on us there in the sixth inning and we never regrouped."
 
With the loss, Samford (33-25) moves to 1-3 against Western Carolina (27-28) this season and falls into the loser's bracket where the Bulldogs will square off against ETSU on Friday at 2:30 p.m. (CDT) in an elimination game.
 
In the regular season, ETSU met Samford in Birmingham, Alabama, for a three-game series and the Bucs were able to record a sweep at Joe Lee Griffin Field.
 
"We're going to have to pitch well tomorrow," said Dunn. "ETSU is another very strong offensive team and we saw that firsthand a few weeks ago. Hopefully, our guys will come out ready to get back at it. As disappointing as tonight is, it doesn't end anything. The opportunity is still there, but it's going to take a really good effort tomorrow afternoon."
 
The Catamounts moved on to Saturday's semifinals, where they will face No. 1 seed Mercer at 11 a.m.
 
A seven-run sixth inning turned a 3-3 tie game into a different affair Thursday as No. 2 seed Western Carolina topped No. 6 seed Samford.
 
The teams were deadlocked at 3-3 heading into the sixth, but Western Carolina sent 12 batters to the plate in the frame to pull away. The Catamounts' first six batters in the inning reached, with Bryce Bowman and J.D. Long each recording two-run singles in the rally before Samford's third pitcher of the inning, Jared Brasher, struck out the first batter he faced to stop the rally.
 
Western Carolina recorded seven of its 18 hits in the sixth, all of them singles, with Danny Bermudez and Garrett Brown also notching run-scoring base knocks.
 
"We definitely didn't play well tonight," Dunn said. "Mikhail (Cazenave) didn't have his best stuff, but he also didn't make many mistakes and they only scored the three runs in four innings. Then, we started committing errors and walking guys and they did a good job of capitalizing on that."
 
Samford led 3-2 after three innings despite having just one hit to that point. A pair of hit batters and a Western Carolina throwing error on a double steal let T.J. Dixon and Hunter Swilling score in the first inning without the benefit of a hit, and Danny Rodriguez's sacrifice fly in the third came after another hit batter, a walk and a fielder's choice.
 
Kramer Ferrell had RBI singles in the first and third innings and Long hit a sacrifice fly in the fourth as the Catamounts kept pace with Samford in the early going.
 
Six Western Carolina players recorded multiple hits in the contest, with Matt Smith leading the way with a triple and three singles. Brett Pope had three hits and scored a game-high three runs, while Long led the way with three RBIs on two hits and a sacrifice fly.
 
Samford's Rodriguez had two of the Bulldogs' four hits. Samford's T.J. Dixon and Richard Greene also notched base hits in the contest.
 
The loss went to Samford reliever Caleb Maggio (0-1), who allowed six runs on five hits and two walks in an inning of work.
 
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