Hickory, N.C.. The Lenoir-Rhyne Baseball team rebounded from their first series loss last weekend with a sweep of Bluefield State on a cold and rainy Wednesday afternoon. In the opening game,
Owen Blackledge,
Sal Carricato,
Cole Stanford, and
Ben Michael hit home runs as LR won 12-0. In the night cap, The Bears held the Big Blue to just two hits in an 8-0, seven-inning victory.
Mackenzie Wainwright continues to do damage at the plate, going 3-for-7 on the day with seven RBI's and a run scored.
INSIDE THE MATCHUP:
Game One Final: #16 Lenoir-Rhyne 12, Bluefield St. 0
Game Two Final: #16 Lenoir-Rhyne 8, Bluefield St. 0
Records: Lenoir-Rhyne (28-6) Bluefield St. (3-27)
Location: Durham Field I Hickory, N.C.
GAME ONE INFO:
- The Bears scored runs in each of the first five innings as LR opened a 9-0 lead through five.
- Ben Michael capped off the scoring with his first career home run, a three run shot in the 8th.
- Owen Blackledge, Cole Stanford and Sal Carricato each went deep in this one, bringing the Bears to 76 total home runs on the year.
- Alex Khan went 3-for-3 and joined Blackledge and Andrew Stillinger with two runs scored.
- Wainwright, who is looking for chase down teammate Carricato for the SAC lead in RBI's, had three in this one.
- Preston Drebes got the start and throw four scoreless innings while Walker Pedante picked up the win with two scoreless innings out of the bullpen.
- Caydon Laird, Donnie Canchela, and Michael Ribis added zero's out of the pen.
GAME TWO INFO:
- For the second straight game, LR scored three times in the first inning as the Bears this time all of them unearned.
- Wainwright had back-to-back innings with two-run RBI singles.
- Carricato joined Wainwright with two hits in the night cap as LR had nine hits in the second game.
- Peyton Schofield started an threw three scoreless innings as Randon Rigdon, Caleb Cockerham, Kobie Cushing and Spencer Floyd picked up zeros out of the pen as the Bears held the Big Blue to two hits.
BEYOND THE BOX SCORE:
- This was the first meeting between these teams since a home and away series in 2022.
- Mackenzie Wainwright extended his hitting streak to 24 games.
- The longest hitting streak for the Bears since 2015 when the stat was first tracked was Marcus Shoemaker's 26 game hitting streak in 2017.
- Current assistant coach Blake Bean had a 20 game hitting steak during the 2023 season.
- Wainwright and Cole Laskowski have been on base in all 34 games this season.
- The Bears are ranked #16 in the NCBWA media poll, #14 in the Perfect Game poll, #7 in the ABCA Coaches Poll, and #5 on diviibaseball.com.
UP NEXT: Lenoir-Rhyne will return to SAC play on Friday night as they welcome Mars Hill into Durham Field for a three game series. Mars Hill is 10-25 and 4-14 in the SAC after suffering a sweep against Limestone last week. First-pitch is scheduled for 6:00 PM.