High Point surrendered a two-out base hit to Tommy Lentz in the bottom of the eighth inning as the Winthrop Eagles rallied past the Panthers for a 6-5 come-from-behind win on Friday night in the opening game of a three-game series at The Winthrop Ballpark.
 
Winthrop (39-12, 14-5 BSC) trailed throughout the game before Lentz came up with the game-winning blooper into left field. The loss was High Point's third straight and dropped HPU's record to 24-27, 12-7 heading into Saturday night's nationally televised game against the Eagles that will be broadcast by ESPNU.
 
High Point jumped in front early scoring three times in the first inning off Eagle righthanded freshman pitcher Ben Hildreth.  Jeff Cowan led off the game by poking Hildreth's second pitch just over the outstretched glove of Chris Carrara for a single.  Chris Norwood followed with another single to rightfield and Mark Shorey walked to load the bases with no outs.  After getting cleanup hitter Billy Aguiar on a called third strike, Cowan scored on a wild pitch.  Norwood then scored the second run on a sacrifice fly to right field by Matt Gantner.  Shorey came around to score the third run on a single by Randy Schwartz.
 
The Panthers added a fourth run in the second inning following a two-out double down the left field line by Cowan.  He came around to score following an infield single by Norwood and a throwing error by third baseman Mitch Saum.
 
Saum redeemed himself in the bottom of the second with an RBI single to center that scored Ben Ehrlich from second base with two outs.  Ehrlich had reached on a walk off Panther starter Matt Christie and stole second to put himself in scoring position. 
 
Hildreth settled down to hold High Point scoreless for the next three innings while Winthrop was able to knot the score at 4-4 with a run in the fourth and two more in the fifth.  Phil Carey's one-out triple down the right field line was the key hit in the fourth inning.  He scored on a two-out single by Ehrlich.  The Eagles tied things up in the fifth as Carrara was hit by a pitch to lead off the inning and then scored on a triple off the right field wall by Heath Rollins.  Dempsey then drove home Rollins with a sharp single to right field.
 
But the Panthers came back quickly to reclaim the lead when Schwartz drove a home run to left field to put High Point back in front, 5-4.  Following a fielding error by shortstop Matt Repec on a grounder by Ryan Laboy, Hildreth was relieved by freshman righthander Jason Franzblau who came on to close the door and hold High Point scoreless through the eighth inning.
 
The Eagles took advantage of three bases on balls issued by High Point reliever Brandon Moore in the eighth frame.  Saum led off the inning with a walk.  Tyler McBride came in to pinch run and was sacrificed to second by catcher Alan Robbins.  McBride advanced to third when Carrara flied out deep to right field for the second out.  Moore then issued back-to-back walks to Heath Rollins and Jacob Dempsey to load the bases and set the stage for Lentz' key hit which came off reliever Chris Marks.
 
Moore (1-3) suffered his second consecutive loss for the Panthers. Franzblau earned his fourth win of the season against one loss pitching 2 2/3 innings of one-hit relief.  Jonathan Settle came on the ninth after Lentz had given the Eagles a 6-5 lead and closed out the victory for his eighth save of the season. 
 
A quartet of High Point players finished with multiple hits on Friday night as Cowan, Norwood, Shorey and Schwartz recorded two hits each. Cowan extended his consecutive on-base streak to 28 games.

High Point and Winthrop square off for the second game in their three-game set on Saturday at 8 p.m. with the final game slated for a 2 p.m. start on Sunday.