BECKLEY, W.Va. – The Concord University baseball team rolled to a 15-1 win in its opening game of the Mountain East Conference Tournament Thursday afternoon at Epling Stadium.
The Mountain Lions (16-21) scored two or more runs in five of their nine at-bats, and brought across at least one run in six innings. With the run support, senior pitcher
Trent Abernathy limited Wheeling (27-13) to five hits while striking out nine in his complete game.
Four consecutive hits to open the game got Concord on the board as junior infielder
Evan Antonellis and sophomore outfielder
Richard Ortiz recorded RBI. Wheeling answer with its only run of the game in the bottom of the first inning.
From there, Abernathy retired the next 10 Cardinals as CU opened up a 6-1 lead after four innings. Included in a three-run fourth was a two-run double by freshman infielder
Zack Saryeldin and the second RBI of the game for Antonellis.
Abernathy ran into trouble in the fifth as WU loaded the bases with one out, but the Harrisonburg, Virginia native induced a double play to keep the margin at five runs.
A two-run double from freshman catcher
Nick Funk and a proceeding single from freshman catcher
Chris Satcher expanded the lead to 9-1 in the sixth. All three runs were unearned after Wheeling's right fielder dropped a foul ball to keep Funk's at-bat alive.
The Mountain Lions added two runs in the eighth on Funk's fourth home run of the season, and four more runs in the ninth.
After starting the game 0-for-3, Funk had two doubles and a home run in his final three at-bats to finish with six RBI. Saryeldin matched Funk with three hits as he scored four times. Antonellis and Ortiz in the third and fourth spots in the batting order combined for four hits and five RBI.
Abernathy (5-3) finished the game retiring 13 of the final 16 batters he faced as he needed 118 pitches to author his best outing of the season. He passed Trey Smith for third on Concord's all-time strikeouts on Thursday, and now has 218 career strikeouts.
CU plays a winner's bracket game at 7:00 p.m. Friday against the winner of Charleston-West Liberty.
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