March 20, 2008

Final Stats

The Bisons continued their success at home, defeating Gardner-Webb 6-5 for their 9th win of the season on Thursday, March 20.

The Bulldogs wasted no time getting on the board, plating a run in the first to take a 1-0 lead.

The Bisons quickly responded, scoring two on Caleb Joseph's fourth homerun of the season and another on an RBI single by Shane Simpkins.

Gardner-Webb got to Bisons starter, Rex Brothers again in the second, plating three runs on three hits to retake a 4-3 lead.

An inning later, the Bisons tied the game at four on an RBI single up the middle by Ryan Wilkins.

However, the Bulldogs retook the lead in the top of the fourth on a sacrifice fly. The Bisons retied it, this time at five, in the bottom of the inning. After Jorge Gutierrez stole second with two outs, Joseph drove him home on a single to left for his third RBI of the day.

Brothers was relieved by right-hander Chris Burnett with two outs in the eighth. In 7.2 innings of work, Brothers gave up five runs on 11 hits, while striking out six in the no-decision.

After Burnett recorded the final out of the eighth, the Bisons took the momentum with them into their at bat. With one out, Ben Williams doubled to left center. One out later, Joseph added his fourth RBI of the day, a single to left, scoring Williams to give the Bisons a 6-5 lead that they would not relinquish.

Burnett recorded the win to improve his record to 1-0. In his 1.1 innings of work he did not give up a hit, while striking out two.

"The win definitely gives us momentum going into tomorrow," Burnett said. "It is hard to take two in a double-header, so winning today was vital. We could easily have panicked with the way Gardner-Webb was swinging the bat, but we hung in there, and had confidence that if we could keep it close our batters could get the runs back."

Joseph led the team on offense with three hits and four RBIs. Williams also recorded three hits in the game, with Blake Bratcher and Wilkins contributing two each.

With the win, the Bisons evened out their record at 9-9, and improved to 6-4 in the conference. The Bisons will return to action when they take on Gardner-Webb in a double-header, tomorrow, March 21, with the first game scheduled to kick off at 1 p.m.

"It was a huge win for us," Joseph said. "They are a very scrappy team. They were never out of the game. It will be tough to win two tomorrow. They are well coached and they execute. We just came in and we stayed focused. Rex took us deep and Burnie finished us out. The deeper we can get with our pitching, the better off we are."