GREENSBORO — As night fell upon the east side of Greensboro and the temperature dropped thanks to an intensive wind that blew hard enough to bend the flagpole carrying the American Flag in center field, the North Carolina A&T and Gardner-Webb baseball teams engaged in a whacky and wild non-conference game at War Memorial Stadium on Wednesday.
It was so whacky it ended after eight innings instead of nine, with the GWU Runnin' Bulldogs winning 20-10. The two teams did not play the ninth inning as the game approached 3 ½ hours before it ended. When it ended, the two teams combined to score 30 runs, record 29 hits, commit 10 errors and allow 16 walks. The two teams also tossed a combined 15 pitchers, with the Aggies placing 10 players on the bump.
Even looking at the final score makes the game a little peculiar because the Aggies led 8-2 after three innings and 10-5 after four before the Runnin' Bulldogs scored 15 unanswered runs to close the game. GWU scored the first two runs of the game in the first before the Aggies posted eight unanswered runs. Leadoff hitter Shemar Dalton reached bases safely for the 24th straight game when GWU starter and RHP Noah Arnett walked him on four pitches.
Dalton moved to third on a Michael Logan single. Logan advanced to second on the throw to third to throw out Dalton, and graduate Tatsunori Negishi followed with an RBI sacrifice fly to left field to score Dalton. Junior catcher Canyon Brown tied the game at 2-2 with an RBI triple, scoring Logan.
Brown's triple chased Arnett from the game for RHP Gavin Schmitt. Junior Chet Sikes' RBI single to left greeted him, giving the Aggies a 3-2 lead as Brown crossed the plate. A&T's offense kept the good times going in the home second. Isaiah Monge led off the inning with a double, and Dalton followed with a bunt single to put Aggies on the corner.
A throwing error allowed Monge to score and moved Dalton to third. A&T took a 5-2 lead when GWU second baseman Tommy Tavarez misplayed a Logan ground ball, allowing Logan to reach and Dalton to score. Connor Maggi replaced Schmitt on the mound, but the change did not matter to Negishi. A two-run homer from Negishi increased A&T's lead as what looked like a routine fly ball to right got carried off in the wind, giving the Aggies a 7-2 lead.
The Aggies put two more on in the inning as Sikes singled and Ash walked before Maggi retired Enrique Wood and Devon Rodriguez to escape the inning. Not deterred, however, the Aggies kept putting runs on the board in the third. Another error from Tavarez allowed Dalton to reach with one out. Logan's single and a walk to Negishi loaded the bases with one out. Maggi unleashed a wild pitch to give the Aggies an 8-2 advantage.
But the tide seemed to shift on a Brown ground ball that third baseman Ryan Kennell fielded before firing home to throw out Logan, who was trying to score. Sikes flew out to left to end the inning as GWU began to mount its comeback.
A solo home run from Matt Ilgenfritz and a two-run homer from Peter Capobianco in the visitor's fourth cut GWU's deficit to three, 8-5. GWU turned to RHP Josh Gentile (W, 3-0) to try to keep the Aggies offense from doing further damage, but he walked Ash and gave up a single to Wood to put runners on the corner. Wood eventually scored on an error before Wood came home on an RBI sac fly from Dalton to give the Aggies their 10-5 lead.
A&T turned to RHP Trent Simmons (L, 1-1) in the fifth. But GWU used four hits, two errors, and two walks to score six runs. Capobianco's two-run double cut the A&T's lead to 10-9, and Nick Capozzi's two-run single gave GWU its first lead of the game. GWU added two more runs in the sixth, three more in the seventh, and four in the eighth to end the game.
Kennell and Capobianco scored four runs apiece for the Runnin' Bulldogs. Capobianco drove in four runs. Five Aggies had multiple-hit games, and Negishi recorded three RBIs. A&T will head to Buies Creek over the weekend to face the Campbell Fighting Camels in a three-game Coastal Athletic Association (CAA) series, starting with a Friday contest at 6 p.m.
