Mercer University
Furman
Baseball Rolls Past Furman for Record Breaking Fifth-Straight League Win
3/28/2015 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
GREENVILLE, S.C. – The Mercer University baseball team made history with Saturday's 11-1 victory over Furman, setting a program record with its fifth straight win to open up conference play.
"It's a great accomplishment for our program to get off to a record-breaking start in a strong league like the Southern Conference," said head coach Craig Gibson. "We are starting to really settle in and play great defensively and Grant (Papelian) was a big part of that with an outstanding performance on the mound."
Mercer (18-11, 5-0 SoCon) raced out to an early lead and never looked back, thanks to Grant Papelian's best outing of the season. The senior left-hander tossed seven shutout innings, giving up just three hits with four strikeouts for his third victory of the year. Carter Varga and Cam Wesolowski recorded the game's final six outs to hand the team its seventh-straight win.
The Bears' lineup continued its onslaught, recording double-figure hits for the sixth-straight contest with 10 on the afternoon. The bottom of the lineup came up big for Mercer in the second game of the series, as the seventh, eighth and ninth hitters combined for six of the team's 10 hits including a career-high three from Trey Truitt.
"Offensively our guys are putting together good at-bats and the bottom of our lineup was great today," added Gibson. "Jackson (Ware) had another big hit for us early and Truitt was tremendous in the nine spot, which is a big reason why we are playing good team baseball right now with guys continuing to pick each other up."
Mercer, who is 14-1 when scoring first this season, struck the opening salvo with four runs in the top of the second inning. Howard Joe led off the frame with a triple to straight-away center field, before Ware drove him in with a two-run blast over the wall in left center. The Bears added two more runs later in the inning for a 4-0 advantage, after RBI hits from Nate Moorhouse and Kyle Lewis.
Ware started a two-out rally in the third with an infield single, before moving into scoring position with his first career stolen base. Truitt plated his fellow freshman moments later, floating a single over the infield into right center to hand Mercer a 5-0 advantage. The Bears added a run in the top of the sixth for a 6-0 lead, after Truitt native crossed the dish on Moorhouse's sacrifice fly.
Mercer's lead grew in the seventh thanks to a two-out error that helped the Bears score twice in the frame for an 8-0 advantage. The Bears would tack on three more runs in the eighth on Devin Bonin's three-run blast to right field, reaching double-digit runs for the fifth time in their last seven games.
Furman (11-14, 1-4 SoCon) broke up the Bears' shutout bid in the ninth, as Zach Greenwell scored the team's only run on Matt Towarnicky's sacrifice fly to close out the scoring for the game.
Mercer will go for the series sweep tomorrow, March 29, as first pitch is scheduled for 1 p.m. at Latham Stadium.
