University of North Carolina Ashville Athletics
UNC Asheville
Murray State
Baseball Downs Murray State 15-5
02.19.2011 | Baseball
ASHEVILLE, N.C. - UNC Asheville exploded for 17 hits and 15 runs as the Bulldogs rolled to a 15-5 victory over Murray State at Greenwood Field Saturday afternoon.
Asheville improved to 2-0 for the first time since the 1993 season when it started 5-0. The Bulldogs were led at the plate by six different players who had two hits each. Freshman Eli Miller made his college debut and went 2-for-5 with four RBI's. Senior center-fielder Danny Baatz had two hits and drove in two runs.
The Bulldogs opened the scoring with five runs in the first inning as they sent 10 men to the plate. Asheville had five hits in the inning and took advantage of two Breds (0-2) errors. The home team had four different players get an RBI with the other run scoring on a wild pitch.
Murray State scored once in the second and added two runs in the fourth inning to allow the Breds to cut the Asheville lead to 5-3.
The Bulldogs put the game away with 10 runs over the last three innings. Patrick Koontz delivered an RBI-single in the sixth to make it 6-3.
In the seventh, Asheville scored three times. The big blow was Miller's three-run double that pushed the Bulldog margin to 9-3.
Asheville posted another big inning in the eighth with six runs. Miller had another big blow with a two-run single. Jordan Lurie and Cody Buch had run-scoring singles, while Baatz finished the inning with a two-run single.
"We did a good job swinging the bats again today," commented Asheville coach Tom Smith. "I also liked the fact that we didn't have any errors today. We believe we have some good balance in our line-up and that was evident today. It's nice to be 2-0 but it's a long season."
Dilon Tabar, the second of Asheville's six pitchers earned the win for the Bulldogs. He pitched two innings and allowed two runs.
The teams will play the third and final game of the series on Sunday at 1 p.m.
