For seven-plus innings, The Citadel was playing winning baseball.
Good pitching, solid defense and timely hitting is normally a formula for success.
Unfortunately for the Bulldogs, mistakes over the final two innings proved to be too much to overcome against their cross-town rivals.
Tyler Sorrentino drove in two runs and Andrew Duval and Davis Aiken threw two perfect innings as College of Charleston rallied from a three-run deficit to beat The Citadel, 5-4, before a crowd of 1,000 at Riley Park on April 23.
Khyree Miller fist bumps Citadel players after CofC won against The Citadel at Joseph P. Riley Park in Charleston on Tuesday, April 23, 2024.
The Cougars (29-10) own the nation’s second-longest winning streak at nine games and have won 15 of their last 16 games.
The Bulldogs (17-21) have dropped three straight and five of their last six games.
Through seven innings, The Citadel appeared to be in control, jumping out to a 4-2 advantage.
The Bulldogs got four solid innings from starter Ethan Fewell, a couple of nice defensive plays, and for the first time in weeks got timely hitting as Thomas Rollauer collected two hits and drove in two runs.
“This was a tough one, obviously College of Charleston is a really good team,” said Citadel coach Tony Skole. “For the most part we were in control. I thought offensively we were doing some nice things early in the game. A team like that, they have a habit of finding ways to win and right now, we’re finding ways to lose and that’s definitely what happened.
Andrew Duval is congratulated by his teammates after pitching during the game that CofC won against The Citadel at Joseph P. Riley Park in Charleston on Tuesday, April 23, 2024.
“We played well enough to win. The base on balls, the wild pitches late in the game hurt us. It comes down to little things and that’s what usually wins or loses games.”
When a team is on a roll like the Cougars have been for three weeks, they will find ways to win when they are not playing their best.
The top of the Cougars’ lineup, batters one through five, were a combined 1 of 21 at the plate against five Bulldog pitchers.
“Look, Citadel has a good team and they shut us down for most of the game,” said College of Charleston coach Chad Holbrook. “We’re pitching and playing defense. We’re throwing strikes and we are doing our best to make our opponents earn it. Sometimes things will go your way if you stay in that mindset.
“It didn’t look good for us early. We did have some good at-bats. We didn’t wear the stat-sheet out. We won the game with six hits. We found a way to win. Our bullpen pitched really well.”
The Citadel scored three runs in the bottom of the third, thanks to Rollauer’s two-run double and a ground-out RBI from Javier Crespo.
The Bulldogs added a run in the fourth to make it 4-2 on Sawyer Reeves’ ground-out RBI.
Trailing 4-3 in the top of the eighth, the Cougars put runners on the corners with one out. Dylan Johnson laid down a bunt, and the Bulldog pitcher threw wildly trying to retire Will Baumhofer at the plate to tie the game.
Sorrentino followed with a sacrifice fly, his second RBI of the game, to bring home Kevin Madden with the eventual winning run.
While Charleston was mounting its comeback at the plate, the bullpen held The Citadel in check. Emmett Bice, the third of five Cougar pitchers, entered in the fourth and worked 3⅔ innings of two-hit ball to pick up his fourth win of the season.
Duval pitched a perfect eighth, and Aiken finished with a 1-2-3 ninth for his CAA-leading eighth save of the season.
“Pitching and defense wins a lot of games,” Holbrook said.
The two teams will face each other for the second and final time on May 7 at Patriots Point.
