Montevallo Hands Baseball First Loss
Senior Christian Snider steps into the batters box against Montevello (Photo by Brandon Tester)
Over the weekend of Feb.19-21 the UNCP baseball team hosted the visiting Montevallo Falcons in a three game series.
Coming into the series the Braves were sitting at a perfect (6-0), however, they took their first two losses of the season to the Falcons as they only won the first game of the series.
Game one
After a thrilling walk off victory two days before against Pfeiffer the Black and Gold were riding high with momentum into their Friday matchup with the Falcons as they still held a perfect record.
Nothing changed in the first game of the series against Montevallo and the game ended in favor of the Braves in similar fashion to game against Pfeiffer, with a walk off victory.
With the score all knotted up at 5-5 in the bottom of the ninth inning, UNCP’s Hayden Buffkin singled down left field to bring in Luke Jackson for the game winning RBI.
Buffkin stood out in the game for the Black and Gold. He notched four hits, scored two runs and recorded one RBI with five at bats. One of Buffkin’s hits that he recorded ended up being a double.
UNCP’s Nick Debo had another strong outing for the Braves. Debo was able to record two hits, including a home run.
Alex Britt took the mound for the Braves at the end of the game and won his second consecutive game and improved his record to (2-0) on the season.
Jesse Stinnett started the game for UNCP, he allowed eight hits, three runs and had three errors in six innings of pitching.
The victory over Montevallo in game one gave the Braves their first victory of the season in the Peach Belt Conference.
Game two
In the second game of the three game series, the Braves were dominated and lost their first contest of the year 11-2.
After two straight stagnant innings from both teams, the Falcons’ offense finally erupted in the fifth inning. Montevallo scored five runs in the top of the inning to widen a large gap between the Braves.
The Black and Gold’s only two runs came in the bottom of the third and the fourth innings.
Nick Debo singled in the third inning, which brought in Nolan Pierce.
Then in the fourth inning the Braves brought in the score to only trail 5-2 thanks to a triple from Nick Salisbury, which brought Stibel Almen Saba home.
That was all the Braves offense could manage to score for the remainder of the contest. Montevallo’s offense was able to explode for six more runs to take the 11-2 victory in game two of the series.
Game three
With the third game of series left to determine who would take the series, the Falcons of Montevallo came to play for the second consecutive game against the Braves.
The Falcons offense once again dominated the Black and Gold’s pitching staff and won the game 11-4.
UNCP’s offense could not find a rhythm all game long and it took all the way up to the bottom of the eighth inning for the Braves to score runs.
In the opening two innings of the contest, the Falcons took control early with two run innings in each to take a quick 4-0.
In the fourth inning they added three runs.
Then in the top of the eighth inning Montevallo capped of the victory with four more.
UNCP was outscored 27-12 over the three game series.
Now sitting at (7-2) on the year, the Black and Gold will next host Wingate on Feb. 23.
