Mercer University
Harvard
Nyquist's Complete Game Effort Leads Baseball Past Harvard, 7-1
3/8/2015 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
MACON, Ga. – Senior Eric Nyquist threw his first complete-game of the season, helping lift the Mercer University baseball team to a 7-1 victory over Harvard in Sunday's series finale at Claude Smith Field.
"It all started with the guy on the mound today and he (Eric Nyquist) was phenomenal," said head coach Craig Gibson. "We were able to get out to an early lead with some great hits and got the opportunity to settle in on the mound and pitch with a lead. It was a great effort offensively and defensively as well as one of our best overall games of the season against a really good club."
Nyquist, who tossed five scoreless innings in Tuesday's win over Georgia Southern, was dominant once again, surrendering just four hits while facing only 32 batters in his nine innings of work. The Alpharetta, Ga. native saw his scoreless innings streak snapped at 11 with the Crimson's lone score of the game in the fifth, but he would go unblemished the rest of the way out to improve to 2-0 on the year.
The Bears' offense provided more than enough run support on Sunday, thanks to their opportunistic attack throughout the game. Mercer turned seven hits and three bases on balls into eight runs in the contest. Devin Bonin, Tyler Homer and Kyle Lewis each notched two hits to pace the team on the afternoon.
After hitting four home runs in yesterday's doubleheader, the Bears came out swinging again in the series finale with two long balls to open the game. Kyle Lewis led off the contest for Mercer with his sixth jack of the year, before Devin Bonin followed with his second home run in as many games.
The Bears added two more runs in second frame, taking advantage of an error that prolonged the inning. A throwing error by the third baseman allowed Homer to score from first, before Lewis drove in his second run of the game with a single through the left side to plate Trey Truitt.
Mercer added a run in the fourth on Homer's RBI single, before rounding out the scoring with a pair of runs on wild pitches in the eighth. The Bears improved to 7-0 this season when scoring the game's first run and are now 3-1 in series finales on the year.
"I'm really proud of our guys for closing out the weekend with a great performance," added Gibson. "We need to build on this and keep it going with another good club coming up on the schedule this Tuesday."
The Bears take that momentum into Tuesday's match-up against Florida A&M in Tallahassee, Fla. Mercer will put its perfect 4-0 road record on the line, when the two-game series opens up with a 6 p.m. first pitch.
