Written and Media By Brianna Anderson.
The Greenville College Baseball team had a huge weekend with potential conference tournament implications. GC took on Blackburn College and won the series by taking two out of three games. Not only did the Panthers have an outstanding defense, but their offense was unstoppable.
Game 1
Senior pitcher Ryan Strohm kept the Beavers quiet in the first inning of game one, but the Blackburn defense was also able to silence the Panther bats early. For the first and second inning the score remained 0-0. Finally, Greenville put up not just one, but two runs on the board in the third inning thanks to Mike Hardin, who scored during a run down, and Travis Ralls batted in Nate Miller. Strohm didn’t let the Beavers score until the sixth inning and the score stood at 3-1. That didn’t bother the GC hitters, as they pushed one run across and loaded the bases with one out. Miller cleared the bases with a triple, exploding the score to 7-1. Senior CJ Opp came in to pitch for Greenville in the eighth inning and Jason Collingwood slammed the door in the ninth to allow GC to hold on for the 7-4 win.
Game 2
Freshman Adam Lamb started out on the mound for the Panthers, but couldn’t keep the Beavers from scoring three runs in the second inning. Finally in the third inning, Shane Olmsted hit a sac fly to score Trevor Montgomery and put the Panthers on the board. Jesse Getz hit an RBI to score Ralls, making the score 3-2 with Blackburn still on top. The Beavers added another run to push the score 4-2. Dathan Berning hit a bomb home run, but Blackburn didn’t stop the runs from coming in. The score as of the fifth inning was 8-3 in favor of Blackburn. Hardin answered back with a shot over the fence and not long after, Montgomery hit an RBI making the score 8-7. It didn’t stop there, as Danny Strohm drove Austin Marsh in making it a tied ball game. Greenville took the lead at 11-9 in the bottom of the seventh. Collingwood took to the mound in the seventh, but couldn’t keep the Beavers from scoring three to take the win over Greenville 12-11.
Game 3
Phil Reedy started the game for the Panthers and kept the Beavers quiet up until the second inning when Blackburn added a run on the board. Hardin singled to left and scored D. Strohm to tie up the game 1-1. The score stayed the same up until the fourth inning when Getz scored Ralls to give Greenville a 2-1 lead. Blackburn then answered back, taking a 3-2 lead. The Panthers responded, as Miller scored Berning and tied it back up. Olmsted hit a shot that put the Panthers back on top 7-3 and then tacked on four more runs in the top of the sixth. With a 12- 3 lead, Opp come in to pitch for Greenville. The Panthers scored three in the eighth and took the win over Blackburn 15-4.
After the weekend, Greenville has a conference record of 11-7, and is tied for second place with MacMurray in the East Division. The top two teams in each division advance to the SLIAC tournament.
The Panthers are back in action for a conference match up on Wednesday at Fontbonne at 5:00 and 7:30 pm.
Good re cap Brianna.