Baseball traveled to Petersburg, VA for their conference series against Richard Bland College. The Trojans took game one and three and fell in extra innings in game two.
The Trojans are now 22-25 overall and 12-18 in conference play as they enter their last two weeks of regular season games.
FTCC vs. Richard Bland College:
Game One- 16-5, Win
In game one, the Trojans put up a five spot early and held onto their lead throughout the game.
In the second, Toufic Khabie (Aventura, FL) hit a leadoff homerun to get the rally started. JJ Faulkner (East Arcadia, NC) followed with a one-out solo shot to put the Trojans up 2-0. Cole Feldman (Midlothian, VA), Charlie Sindahl (Savannah, GA) and Devin Outlaw (Jacksonville, FL) all follow with singles before Myles Odom (Pleasant Garden, NC) smashes a double to the fence. Clayton Bloomstran (Atlanta, GA) and Zamar Lewis (Dublin, NC) keep the energy with two more singles to put the Trojans up 5-0.
The Trojans scored their next runs in the fifth. Khabie again starts the rally off, this time with a single. Lucca Pascarella (Wilmington, NC) doubles to put two runners in scoring position. Faulkner and Feldman each hit a sacrifice fly to increase the lead by two.
Outlaw hits his solo homerun to leadoff the sixth inning.
In the top of the ninth, the Trojans put up eight more insurance runs. Khabie draws a leadoff walk followed by one out walks from Faulkner and Feldman to load the bases. Sindahl singles to right field for two RBIs and Outlaw gets hit by pitch. Odom then singles to center field for another run and Bloomstran draws an RBI walk. With two outs, Evan Walker (Jacksonville, FL) draws a walk to score Outlaw before Pascarella hits another double to clear the bases putting the Trojans up 16-5.
The Trojans only used two pitchers in the nine-inning contest. Jack Anderson (St. Simmons Island, GA) threw the first five innings, giving up six hits with one strikeout. Tommy Parker (St. Pauls, NC) finished the final four innings with one hit and one strikeout.
Game Two- 2-3, Loss (10-innings)
The Statesmen scored first in game two with one run in the second inning. The Trojans tied it back up at one in the top of the third.
Outlaw reached on an error and then stole second base. He then scored on a fly ball to center field from Odom.
The Trojans took the lead in the top of the six, scoring another run on a solo homerun from Faulkner.
Richard Bland responded in the bottom of the inning scoring one run to tie the game back up a two.
The seven-inning contest turned into an extra inning game as the Statesmen pushed one run across in the bottom of the tenth to take game two.
Lucas Morgan (Florence, SC) started on the bump going five innings, giving up four hits and two runs with one strikeout. Xander Davis (Carolina Beach, NC) came on in relief for the final 4.1 innings giving up two hits and one run with two strikeouts.
Game Three- 17-7, Win (7-innings)
After an extra inning game the night before, the Trojans enforced run-rule in seven innings after scoring 17 runs with 15 hits.
The Trojans scored three runs in the top of the first. Odom drew a leadoff walk and Josiah Harrison (Chesterfield, VA) was hit by pitch to put two runners on with one out. Khabie smacked his second homerun of the weekend over the fence to put the Trojans on the scoreboard.
Four more Trojan runs were scored in the second starting off with a leadoff homerun from Outlaw, his second of the weekend. Odom reached on an error and scored on a single from Bloomstran. Harrison walked to keep the rally going and Khabie singled for another RBI. With two outs, Faulkner singled and Feldman hit a sacrifice fly to put the Trojans up 7-1 going into the bottom of the second inning.
The Statesmen responded with five runs in the bottom, pulling the game within one run.
No more runs were scored until the Trojans increased their lead by three in the fifth. Outlaw walked and Odom hit his first homerun of the weekend earning two RBIs. Bloomstran singled and later scored on a wild pitch for the third run.
The Trojans kept their energy going into the sixth as they scored five more runs. Sindahl singled with one out and Outlaw was hit by pitch. Bloomstran hit a single to score Sindahl and Harrison singled to score Outlaw and Bloomstran. Khabie then doubled and Pascarella singled to plate two more runs.
Scoring two more runs in the top of the seventh enforced run-rule territory for the Trojans. Feldman was hit by pitch to leadoff the inning and Outlaw smacked his second homerun of the game, third on the weekend, to put the Trojans up 17-7.
Baseball travels to Gaston College on Wednesday for a single non-conference game at 2pm. They will be back at home this weekend to host Pitt Community College in a conference series. Sophomore Day will be Saturday, April 26 before the start of the game at 1pm.
