April 15, 2008

Box Score

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - The Samford baseball team pounded out 15 hits on its way to an 8-3 win over Mercer Tuesday night at Joe Lee Griffin Field. The win was Samford's 16th-straight home win, the longest home winning streak in the nation.

Samford improved to 22-11 with the win. The Bulldogs are 17-2 in home games this season. Mercer drops to 15-23 with the loss.

Joshua Vanfleteren pitched 5.0 innings, giving up no earned runs on just three hits to earn the win for the Bulldogs. Bill Whitehead was 3-for-5 at the plate. Michael Johnson, Bo Smith and Wayne Miller had two hits each for Samford. Bear Burnett hit a solo home run in a 1-for-4 performance. Michael Marseco extended his career-long hitting streak to 18 games with a single in the fifth inning.

"Josh set the tone early and probably threw the ball as well as he has thrown it since he's been here," Samford head coach Casey Dunn said. "Hopefully, he will just keep getting better. Every starter we had got a hit for us tonight, so it was really a balanced attack and a great way to start off the week."

For Mercer, Tyler McCarty, Tyler Brown, Mike Armstrong and Billy Shaghnessy had two hits each. Michael Shaw pitched 4.0 innings, giving up four runs on nine hits to take the loss for the Bears.

Samford took an early lead with a run in the bottom of the first inning, but Mercer came back with a run in the top of the fourth to tie the score at 1-1.

Samford plated three runs in the fourth inning and three more in the fifth to take a 7-1 lead. Burnett led the fourth inning off with a solo home run to right-center field for a 2-1 Samford lead. Miller later doubled to left-center field to drive in Marcus Rodriguez and Smith for the final two runs of the fourth inning.

In the fifth inning, Michael Rutledge tripled to right field to drive in Marseco and Whitehead to make the score 6-1. Rutledge later scored on a Mercer wild pitch for a 7-1 Samford lead.

Samford added another run in the bottom of the seventh inning to push its lead to 8-1. Smith doubled to right-center field to drive in Burnett for a seven-run Samford lead.

The Bears added two final runs in the top of the ninth inning to make the final score 8-3.

Samford will play again Wednesday night, when the Bulldogs travel to Troy. The game is scheduled for a 6 p.m. start from Troy's Riddle-Pace Field. The game can be heard locally on WVSU-FM 91.1, or worldwide on the internet at www.samford.edu/groups/wvsu/.