The High Point University baseball team came up just short of earning a weekend sweep of 18th-ranked North Carolina State following a hard fought 4-2 loss on Sunday afternoon at Doak Field at Dail Park.

High Point fell to 18-25 with the loss while NC State moved to 32-14 with the win. The two squads split their two-game set with HPU earning a 9-6 win on Saturday night.

Tommy Foschi and Drew Martin combined to drive in three runs in the bottom of the fourth inning, making a winner of starter Eric Sogard (2-1). Sogard worked five innings, allowed one run on four hits, walked one and struck out five. Joey Cutler, Drew Taylor and Kyle Rutter pitched the final four innings and allowed a combined one unearned run on two hits.

The three-run inning cost Panthers starter Sean Murphy the loss (1-2). Murphy was charged with four runs in all on eight hits in six innings of work. He walked one and struck out two.

Marcus Jones got the fourth started for NC State with a one-out infield single. Nick Stanley singled to right, sending Jones to third, and Foschi rolled a single through the left side of the infield to score Jones with the game's first run. Foschi and Stanley pulled a double steal, forcing High Point to bring the infield in with runners on second and third and just one out, and Martin took advantage with a bloop single that barely reached the outfield grass. Both runners scored on the play, giving Sogard a 3-0 lead.

Kyle Mahoney got the Panthers on the scoreboard with an RBI single up the middle with two outs in the top of the fifth, but Matt Payne answered for State with a leadoff homer to left-center in the bottom half of the inning. High Point scored the final run of the game in the top of the sixth on an RBI single by Randy Schwartz.

Schwartz and Alfie Wheeler paced the Panthers at the plate with two hits apiece. Sophomore Pablo Rosario, who missed several weeks of action due to a leg strain, earned a couple of at-bats as the designated hitter in his return to the lineup.

High Point continues a busy stretch of seven games in nine days with a game at UNC Greensboro on Tuesday at 1 p.m. The Panthers will host Longwood on Wednesday night (7 pm) at Williard Stadium.