Bill Manion had two hits and a key RBI to lead the No. 6-seeded High Point past No. 7 Charleston Southern, 2-1, in Game A of the 2009 Royal Purple Big South Baseball Championship, May 19 at historic McCormick Field in Asheville, N.C.  With the victory, the Panthers improves to 20-30 and advances to the main double-elimination bracket of the tournament.  HPU will play either No. 1 seed Coastal Carolina or No. 2 seed Winthrop on Wednesday, depending on the outcome of tonight's Game B between No. 5 Gardner-Webb-No. 8 VMI.  High Point also reaches the main bracket for the first time since 2007.  Charleston Southern's season ends at 16-37.

High Point opened the game's scoring in the bottom of the second.  Max Fulginiti doubled down the right field line and later reached third on Pablo Rosario's ground out to second.  Eric Marion's two-out single scored Fulginiti to give High Point a 1-0 lead.

The Panthers moved ahead 2-0 in the fifth inning when Manion extended his hitting streak to 21 games with a single to left that brought home Jeff Cowan from second base.  Cowan reached base with a one-out single to center field and advanced to second on Alfie Wheeler's groundout to short. 

Charleston Southern cut the lead to 2-1 in the next inning.  Nick Chinners singled up the middle with one out off the third High Point pitcher of the day, Brian Jones, and moved to third on Tyler Thornburg's double.  Derek Smith's sacrifice fly to right plated Chinners with CSU's first run of the day, with Thornburg advancing to third.  The rally ended there, as Kory Morian flied out to center to end the inning.  

The Buccaneers also threatened in the seventh.  Mark Perry doubled to the gap in left with one out, and later reached third on Brantley Meier's two-out infield single off new HPU pitcher Jeremy Berg.  With runners on the corners, Berg got Patrick Dolan to fly out to left to end the inning.  Charleston Southern again rallied in the top of the ninth with back-to-back singles from Perry and Tom Burkett, but Berg induced Meier into a comeback grounder to end the game.

High Point's Corey Swickle was credited with the win, improving to 2-2.  He tossed three innings of shutout ball and permitted just two hits with three strikeouts.  Berg earned his fourth save of the season with 2.1 scoreless innings and three hits allowed.  Used all season as a reliever, Zach Scott got his first start of the season working two shutout innings.  CSU's Jesse Cadenhead suffered the loss (4-6).  He went five innings and allowed five hits, both HPU runs and struck out two batters.  Keith Hustedt relieved Cadenhead with three scoreless frames.

Manion and Fulginiti each had two hits for High Point, which finished with seven on the day.  Wheeler saw his streak of reaching base safely end at 51 games.  He had reached in every game this season until today and the final two games of last season as well.  Fulginiti's double in the second inning tied the school's single-season team record with 110 doubles.  Pablo Rosario was hit by a pitch in the game, tying him with Jeff Cowan at 18, the single-season school record.

Burkett was 3-4 at the plate for Charleston Southern, with Meier, Thornburg and Perry collecting two hits each for CSU, which tallied 12 for the game.  The Bucs left nine runners on base, compared to High Point's six.

High Point Head Coach Craig Cozart
"It was a great team effort today.  We battled throughout the entire contest and the solid pitching performance from all our guys set up our rotation for the remainder of the tournament." 

Charleston Southern Head Coach Stuart Lake
"It was a hard fought loss, especially for our seniors, but we are proud of our season.  There is always room to grow, so we are looking to next season and the opportunities that holds for our program.  Our seniors were great competitors and did some great things for our program this season, our younger guys will use that to grow with and continue and push our program to be as competitive as it can be."