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The High Point University baseball team dropped its first game of the 2012 Big South Conference tournament to Campbell by a score of 10-4 on Wednesday at Williard Stadium. The game between the Panthers and Camels began on Tuesday night before being suspended due to rain.
"Obviously this is a disappointing loss," head coach
Craig Cozart said. "I thought we came out last night with a lot of energy and had momentum on our side but today Campbell came out and put up five runs immediately and that was the ballgame. We didn't quit but we couldn't stack hits together. Now we have to figure out to come back and beat Asheville later today."
Junior
Ryan Retz got the start and took the loss for High Point, pitching 2-1/3 innings and giving up six runs, five earned, on six hits and one walk. Retz also had three strikeouts in the contest.
Campbell's Frank Zair took the ball to start play on Wednesday and got the win, going 6-2/3 innings and allowing just two earned runs on three hits and one walk with two strikeouts.
Retz led HPU at the plate with two RBI on a two-run home run. Junior
Sean Wilson reached base in three of his four at bats with a hit and two walks and scored two of High Point's four runs.
The Camels' Nick Ray went a perfect 4-4 at the plate in the game, driving in four runs and scoring one himself.
HPU falls to 26-30 on the season with the loss while Campbell improves to 41-16.
High Point took a 2-1 lead in the first two innings on Tuesday night before rain caused the game to be suspended until Wednesday morning.
Spencer Angelis and
Mike Miedzianowski each had RBI singles in the first two frames to stake the Panthers to an early lead.
Campbell took its first lead of the game in the bottom of the third inning, the first inning played on Wednesday, scoring five runs after the restart on four hits including RBI doubles by Ben McQuown and Jake Kirkland. Freshman
Joe Goodman came out of the bullpen to get HPU out of the jam with a groundout and a popout in foul territory.
The Panthers got two runs back in the top of the fourth as Retz got a hold of a Frank Zier offering and sent it over the right field wall for a two-run home run. Wilson got on with a one-out walk ahead of Retz who connected for his team-high fourth round tripper of the season.
Campbell pushed its lead to 10-4 with three runs in the bottom of the fifth inning and another in the bottom of the seventh. The Camels got RBI singles by Ray and Ben Fish and an RBI double by Erick Gaylord in the fifth and another RBI single by Ray in the seventh.
High Point now falls into the elimination bracket and will play UNC Asheville for the right to continue on later today at 4:30 p.m., in Williard Stadium.