N.C. Wesleyan College baseball season ends at NCAA Regional
ROCKY MOUNT, N.C. (BVM) — The N.C. Wesleyan College baseball team has had their most successful season in over a decade.聽
The Bishops were playing in the NCAA tournament for the first time since 2009. They beat St. John Fisher in the first game after playing the No. 3 seed.
Senior catcher Brad Pennington was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded, sending sophomore outfielder Drifton Padgett to score the winning run to home base. In the final few innings the team capped off five runs over the final two innings to overcome a four-run deficit.聽
The team earned their 33rd win of the season in the process, advancing to the second round on Saturday. But then they lost to Marietta, 6-4, in Ohio, and were placed in the loser鈥檚 bracket.聽
Things took an interesting turn when in the fourth inning the team took a 2-1 lead on back-to-back doubles from sophomore second baseman Davie Morgan and freshman first baseman Jackson Hobbs after Pennington led with a double.
In the bottom half of the fourth inning, Marietta scored twice to take a 3-2 lead, before Padgett scored on an error, and Pennington performed a sac fly to lead 4-3 in the fifth. However, the Bishops鈥� lead was short-lived, when Marietta scored on an error in the sixth and added a two-run double. That moved the score up to 6-4, putting them in the lead.聽 In the loss, Padgett had a stolen base and three hits.聽
The Bishops also lost their second game in a contest 7-3 against PSU- Behrend. The score was close throughout the entire game until Marietta cut the deficit to 4-3 in the eighth inning. They couldn鈥檛 get closer after allowing three runs in the bottom half of the eighth.聽
The team won nine of their last 11 regular season games leading them to the regional tournament. Their 33 wins were the most since 1999 when the team won the national championship and 42 games during that season.
