Saturday’s action against W&L. PHOTO BY BRIAN HOFFMAN
The Roanoke College baseball team will wrap up the regular season Saturday with a doubleheader at Randolph-Macon. The first game starts at noon.
Roanoke can tie for first place in the Old Dominion Athletic Conference with a sweep, as Randolph-Macon is 16-2 in conference play and RC is 14-4. A sweep would give the Maroons the tie-breaker for seeding when the ODAC tournament begins next week, but RC cannont be the top seed. Virginia Wesleyan is also in the mix at 14-3 in the conference with one game to go, and the Marlins hold the tie-breaker over RC after sweeping the Maroons during the season.
Roanoke, now ranked 13th in the country in Division III, defeated Ferrum College at Salem Memorial Ballpark on Sunday, 11-2, in non-conference action. Sean Guida doubled to lead off the third inning, moved to third base on an Eli Sumpter sacrifice bunt and came home to make it 1-0 on a Will Salva RBI groundout.
Roanoke tacked on two more runs the next inning when Robbie Edwards doubled to score Sam Watson to make it 2-0. The Maroons would go up 3-0 later in the inning on a balk call that scored Gavin Kandrick.
With two outs in the fifth inning, Sumpter was on second base when a fly ball off the bat of Watson was misplayed allowing Sumpter to score. After a Kandrick single moved Watson to third, Edwards singled to make it 5-0. In the Roanoke sixth inning, RC took advantage of a two-out Ferrum error to load the bases. Jack Howard delivered a bases clearing triple to put Roanoke up 8-0. Watson then singled home Howard to make it a 9-0 game.
Diego Meneses went five strong innings to pick up the win to move to 1-0. The right-hander allowed just three hits and no runs, while striking out two.
The Maroons split a doubleheader with Washington & Lee at Salem Memorial on Saturday, dropping the first game 13-5 but bouncing back to win the nightcap, 6-1.