ASHEVILLE, N.C. – A solo home run by
Seojun Oh, his team-leading 17th of the season, was the game-winning run in an 11-10 (10th inning) High Point University victory over UNC Asheville in the first game of the series at the Greenwood Baseball Field on Thursday. With the victory, the Panthers made history and clinched the program's first-ever Big South Conference regular-season title.
Site: Greenwood Baseball Field
Score: High Point 11, UNC Asheville 10
Records: High Point (35-17, 16-6), UNC Asheville (20-33, 8-14)
Head Coach Joey Hammond: Certainly not the way we drew it up to win a championship, I believe you have to be able to win games that get off script. I'm so proud of the fight from our guys tonight. It's a little bit sweeter knowing it clinched the first-ever regular-season Big South championship in the history of the program. Our bullpen did a great job of giving us seven plus innings tonight and found ways to get us the "0"'s we needed in those middle innings and allow for us to climb back in it and eventually get ahead. We had a slew of big hits but
Landen Johnson and
Seojun Oh had some of the biggest ones of the night. It's important to enjoy this for a few minutes and then get back to work and continue our 'playoff baseball' approach for the rest of the way."
Oh led off the 10th inning with a first-pitch home run over the right field wall. Two batters later,
Jake McCarter had the Panthers' sixth extra-base hit of the game, a double to right field.
Dylan Story (W, 2-2) silenced the Bulldog bats in the home half of the frame, striking out Ben Green and Patrick Gillen, to claim his second win in as many outings.
The duo of Oh and
Landen Johnson led the High Point offense with three hits and three RBI as the Panthers pounded out 16 hits. The top three hitters in the HPU lineup, which consisted of
Willie Ponce,
Frank Kelly and Oh, combined for seven hits. Meanwhile, the trio of Johnson,
Jake McCarter and
Jace Kohler provided seven hits of their own as the 5-6-7 hitters.
The HPU bullpen trio of
Justin Silverstein,
Tyler Shafer and Story recorded five strikeouts and limited the Bulldog hitters to just one hit over 3.1 innings after
Wade Walton and
Mateo Wells pitched through 6.2 innings.
The Panthers took a 10-8 lead in the eighth inning when Ponce connected on his first hit of the game, the team's 12th, resulting in an infield single. Two batters later, Oh drove a single down the left field line, putting two runners in scoring position with one out for Johnson.
Johnson responded with a ground-rule double, which moved
Lane Allen to third, while scoring the tandem of Oh and Ponce. The Panthers stretched their lead to two, 10-8, when
Jake McCarter reached on a fielder's choice that allowed Allen to score on a muffed throw.
UNC Asheville knotted the score at 10-all to force extras.
The back-and-forth opening game in the regular-season series finale started with High Point putting the first run on the board in the first inning after Kelly reached base with a single up the middle. After moving to second on a wild pitch, Kelly streaked home following a single to centerfield by Allen.
After the Bulldogs evened the game at one-all in the home half of the first, High Point regained the lead with a home run by McCarter in the second inning. With two outs and the bases loaded, Oh delivered a single to right center field, plating Kelly and Ponce in succession to stretch the lead to 4-1.
UNC Asheville responded with five unanswered runs in the second and third frames. However, High Point manufactured its fifth run of the game when
Justin Ruiz drew a walk and moved into scoring position when Ponce was hit by a pitch. The junior catcher motored home with Allen at the plate for the Panthers' score.
Johnson led off the High Point fifth with a double to left field. He crossed the plate four batters later when Ruiz connected on a single to left, slicing the Bulldogs' lead to 7-6. Despite UNC Asheville scoring for the fifth consecutive inning, pushing the margin back to two, the Panthers capitalized on an Allen walk and a single to right center field by Johnson, which made for an 8-7 contest through the top of the sixth.
Up Next: High Point heads into game two of its series with UNC Asheville on Friday evening when the two clash at 5 p.m. at Greenwood Baseball Field.
