April 2, 2013
MACON, Ga. – No. 15 Georgia Tech was unable to complete the season sweep of Mercer as the Bears made an early 1-0 lead stand up in a 10-1 win over the Yellow Jackets Tuesday night at Claude Smith Field in Macon, Ga.
Mercer led just 3-1 through seven innings, but the hosts pulled away late by scoring seven times on seven hits in the eighth inning and improved to 24-8 overall with its third straight home win over Tech. The Jackets slipped to 21-8 overall.
Kyle Wren had two of Tech’s season-low five hits, extending his hitting streak to 17 games, and Matt Gonzalez’s 30th RBI of the season – a single up the middle in the fourth inning – tied the game at 1-1.
The Jackets got nothing going offensively as six Mercer pitchers put the clamps on the nation’s best hitting club. Stephen Glaze tossed two effective innings of late relief and was credited with the win (2-0), while Dimitri Kourtis one-hit Tech with three strikeouts over the final three innings to earn his third save.
The Bears slugged three home runs in the game – two by Travis Benn — and pounded out 13 hits. Benn finished 2-for-4 with five RBI. The bottom of Mercer’s order combined for seven hits and seven runs.
Mercer drew first blood as Evan Boyd doubled and Chesney Young drove him in for a 1-0 lead in the third. Tech answered back in the fourth when Matt Gonzalez hammered a two-out RBI single up the middle to score Zane Evans.
But Mercer took its lead back in the bottom of the fourth when David Reid-Foley singled and Benn followed in the next at bat when he lifted a fly ball to right-center that carried and bounced off the top of the wall for a two-run home run.
A single from Daniel Spingola was Tech’s only base runner over the final five innings.
Freshman Jonathan King went four innings in his second straight midweek start and was charged with three runs on five hits with four strikeouts in falling to 1-2.
Tech is back in action tomorrow night at Russ Chandler Stadium when it hosts Kennesaw State at 6 p.m.
