BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – The Samford baseball team overcame an early five-run deficit to earn a 16-8 win over Southeastern Louisiana, completing a sweep of the weekend series, Sunday afternoon at Joe Lee Griffin Field.
 
"There's just an incredible resiliency about this group that's hard to define, hard to create," Samford head coach Tony David said. "It's a young, inexperienced group and now that we've gotten into this year, they've gained a lot of experience."
 
With the win, Samford improves to 10-7 on the season. Southeastern Louisiana falls to 8-12 with the loss.
 
Kaden Dreier went 4-for-5 with a home run and five RBI to lead Samford at the plate. Towns King went 3-for-3 with a homer and three RBI. Colton Ledbetter also homered for the Bulldogs, going 2-for-6 with an RBI. Stephen Klein had two hits and two RBI, while Kace Garner also had two hits for Samford.
 
Brody Westbrooks (2-0) pitched 5.1 innings in relief, giving up two runs on five hits and striking out five batters to earn the win for Samford. Jalon Long, Timmy Watkins and Mason McCormack also saw time on the mound for the Bulldogs.
 
"In the top of the first, it's 5-0 and they've got the bases loaded and that could have really spiraled out of control," David said. "Brody got us out of it. Bottom of the first it's two outs, nobody on, Led gets the big hit there, another couple of big hits and we got the two runs and it just settled things down. We really executed hit-and-runs this weekend, we dropped down some base-hit bunts, did a lot of small ball stuff. The story of the day, while the offense was great, was Brody. To come in and throw strikes and settle it down was huge."
 
For Southeastern Louisiana, Tristan Welch homered twice, while Rhett Rosevear, Preston Faulkner and Christian Garcia had one home run each. Hayden Robb (0-2) pitched 1.2 innings, giving up nine runs on eight hits to take the loss for the Lions.
 
Southeastern Louisiana got off to a hot start with five runs in the top of the first inning. Rosevear and Faulkner both hit solo home runs, while Shea Thomas, Garcia and Welch drove in a run each in the inning for a 5-0 SLU lead.
 
Samford plated two runs in the bottom of the inning to cut the lead to 5-2, with King and Dreier driving in a run each. The Bulldogs took control of the game with seven runs in the bottom of the second inning to take a 9-5 lead. Klein and Andrew Bennett drove in two runs each in the inning, while Dreier drove in one run, Bennett scored on a wild pitch and Maurice Hampton scored on a Lion error for a four-run Samford lead.
 
After SLU plated a run in the top of the third inning, Samford came back with two runs in the bottom of the fourth to make the score 11-6. In the top of the sixth inning, SLU added a run, but Samford came back with three runs in the bottom of the sixth to push the lead to 14-7.
 
The Bulldogs added two runs in the seventh inning to make the score 16-7. The Lions plated one final run in the top of the eighth inning to make the final score 16-8.
 
Samford will play at in-state rival Jacksonville State Tuesday evening at 6 p.m.



 

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