GREENSBORO – The North Carolina A&T baseball team lost two leads Saturday during Savannah State's doubleheader sweep of the Aggies.
That would not be the case on Sunday. A&T jumped out to a big lead early and eventually ended an eight-game losing streak with a 10-6 win over SSU at War Memorial Stadium, Sunday afternoon. The win also ends a nine-game conference losing streak for A&T dating back to last season. The Aggies last home conference win came on April 18, 2014 against Bethune-Cookman.
Freshman Adan Ordonez led the Aggies with a 4-for-5 outing that included three runs scored and four RBI.
Interim head coach Ben Hall said the difference between the Aggies good starts on Saturday and their good start on Sunday was pitching. It was only yesterday when the Aggies (3-16, 1-7 MEAC) decided on who the starting pitcher for the third game of the series would be.
Hall and his staff turned to freshman right-hander B Smith who normally pitches as a middle reliever. Smith was excellent over the first four innings, throwing only 39 pitches over that span.
“He got off to a great start,” said Hall about Smith. “He threw the ball in the strike zone. It just gives you a better energy to the game. He was throwing a lot of strikes, a lot of balls were getting put in play and that keeps the infielders locked in.”
Perhaps what had him at ease was the 8-0 lead the Aggies spotted him over the first two innings. A&T's five-run first was aided by two bases-loaded walks, three hits and a Tigers error. Three more runs were scored by the Aggies in the second as Ordonez's two-run RBI double that scored Erik Montero and Brandon Wilkerson who reached base via a walk and hit by pitch respectively.
Ordonez moved to third on a balk and scored the Aggies eighth run when A.J. Hunt grounded out to second.
“We'll take this as a lift,” said Hall. “We took a lead and held on to it, pitched well enough to hold it and hopefully like I said it starts a new week where we can carry some confidence into the new week.”
The Tigers (12-12, 6-3 MEAC) did make a push during the middle innings. Charles Sikes' two-run RBI double in the fifth ended Smith's day after 4.2 innings pitched as the Tigers cut the lead to 8-4.
But Montero opened the Aggies sixth inning with a triple which was followed by an RBI double from Ordonez. Ordonez eventually scored on an error to give the Aggies a six-run cushion at 10-4.
Smith (2-1) would go on to get the win. SSU starter Greg Hollman (3-1) only pitched two-thirds of an inning but only one of the five runs he surrendered were earned. Mendez Elder led the Tigers offensively by going 3-for-4 with two RBI and a run scored.
The Aggies return to action Tuesday when they face UNC Greensboro at NewBridge Bank, home of the Greensboro Grasshoppers, at 6 p.m., in downtown Greensboro. The Aggies next three-game conference series starts Saturday with a 1 p.m., doubleheader at Florida A&M.
“It's a long baseball season,” said Hall. “You've got to keep showing up to the yard. There are a lot of games to play. It might be a different feeling if we were at the end of the year and we were in this situation. We still have more than half of our conference games left. We still have to play (Savannah State) on the road, and we're still learning how to play the game one through nine, every inning of the weekend.”
