Baseball: No. 23 Tigers pound Bulldogs
No. 23 Clemson scored five runs in the first inning and never looked back in their 12-0 victory over Georgia late Tuesday at Doug Kingsmore Stadium. The Tigers, who won both games of the home-and-home season series, improved to 25-12, while the Bulldogs dropped to 20-18.
Clemson also improved to 10-0 in midweek games in 2016, marking the first time it won its first 10 midweek games since 1988.
Reed Rohlman and Chris Williams hit back-to-back two-run doubles in the first inning, then Clemson took a 10-0 lead in the third inning on Chris Okey’s grand slam, his seventh long ball of the season. Seth Beer added a two-run single in the fifth inning. Okey went 2-for-4 with a game-high five RBIs, while Beer was 2-for-2 with three RBIs and two walks.
Freshman righthander Ryley Gilliam (2-0) earned the win in his second career start. In five innings pitched, he allowed just one hit, no runs and one walk with one strikeout. Five Tiger pitchers combined to give up only three hits and keep Georgia from advancing a runner past second base in the game. Bulldog starter Andrew Gist (3-2) suffered the loss, as he yielded six runs on six hits in 3 1/3 innings pitched.
The Tigers will continue their homestand with a three-game series against Georgia Tech beginning at 6:30 p.m. Friday. Live video is available for free on TigerCast at ClemsonTigers.com.
USC Beaufort 10, Middle Georgia 6
HARDEEVILLE — USC Beaufort notched another win over a ranked opponent, as the fifth-ranked Sand Sharks defeated No. 13 Middle Georgia at Richard Gray Sports Complex.
Thomas Estopare went 3-for-5 with two RBIs and Brandon Joyce added two hits and an RBI to help the Sand Sharks (37-6) run their winning streak to five games and claim the season series from the Knights.
USCB grabbed the early lead on Joyce’s RBI single in the first and broke it open with a six-run third inning. Estopare tripled home a run to start the big inning before Kal Davis added his school-record 62nd RBI with a double and Justin Kortessis tacked on an RBI single. A two-out error allowed two more runs to come home, and John Cloyd swiped home in a double steal to make it 7-0.
Middle Georgia (36-12) put together a two-out rally with four runs in the fourth — the last three on Blake Chaney’s bases-loaded double — but Zach Massengale came on to get out of the jam. USCB added three runs in the fifth, with Mclean Hartz scoring on a wild pitch before Cloyd’s RBI triple and Estopare’s run-scoring groundout made it 10-4.
The Knights pushed across single runs in the sixth and seventh, but Kortessis struck out three over two scoreless innings to stop the rally there. Massengale (5-1) earned the win, allowing two runs — one earned — on five hits over 3 1/3 innings.
The Sand Sharks next will travel to face top-ranked Georgia Gwinnett in a top-five showdown. The series will begin with a single game at 6 p.m. Friday, followed by a doubleheader starting at 1 p.m. Saturday.
This story was originally published April 19, 2016 at 9:52 PM with the headline "Baseball: No. 23 Tigers pound Bulldogs."