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COACH DUNN INTERVIEW

GREENVILLE, S.C. – The sixth-seeded Samford baseball team pounded out 16 hits, while the Bulldog pitchers limited second-seeded Western Carolina to four hits in a 6-1 Samford win in an elimination game in the Southern Conference Tournament Thursday evening at Fluor Field.
 
With the win, Samford improves to 32-25 on the season. The Bulldogs advance to take on the loser of tonight's game between Mercer and Furman Friday at 2:30 p.m. (CT). Western Carolina ends its season with a mark of 28-28.
 
The middle of Samford's lineup did most of the damage for the Bulldogs in Thursday's win. Branden Fryman, Ayrton Schafer, Austin Edens and Troy Dixon had three hits and an RBI each. Kevin Williams, Jr., also had three hits for the Bulldogs.
 
"Obviously, Schafer has been swinging the bat well," Samford head coach Casey Dunn said. "He swung it better than anybody in game one, so we wanted to move him up and get him more RBI opportunities. Branden had some big hits. It was great to see Austin come through and look like the Austin of old, and hopefully we will see that guy the rest of the way."
 
Mikhail Cazenave (5-7) pitched 6.0 innings, giving up one run on four hits. Josh Rich and Wyatt Burns combined to hold the Catamounts hitless over the final 3.0 innings.
 
"You can't say enough about what Mikhail did," Dunn said. "What a special outing at a big time. To go out and throw the ball that well under the pressure of an elimination game against, arguably the best lineup in this league and just give us six phenomenal innings, you literally can't say enough about it."
 
Western Carolina was led by Andrew Bullock, going 2-for-3 at the plate. Cameron Blaquiere drove in the Catamounts' lone run of the game. Brendan Nail (6-8) pitched 6.0 innings, giving up four runs on 11 hits to take the loss for Western Carolina.
 
After Western Carolina took the lead with a run in the top of the second inning, Samford came back with three runs in the bottom of the third inning. Schafer, Edens and Jordan Fucci drove in a run each in the inning to give Samford a 3-1 lead.
 
The Bulldogs added a run in the bottom of the fourth inning to push their lead to 4-1. Dixon scored when Fryman reached base on an infield single for a three-run Samford lead.
 
Samford added two final runs in the bottom of the seventh inning for the 6-1 win. Dixon singled to left field to drive in Williams for the first run of the inning. Dixon later scored when older brother T.J. Dixon reached base on a Western Carolina error for the game's final run.