Winthrop falls 17-5 to Charleston Southern

Winthrop was unable to overcome a hot Charleston Southern offense as the Eagles dropped a 17-5 decision to the Bucs Saturday at the Winthrop Ballpark.

With the loss, Winthrop is now 24-21 (9-8 Big South) on the season, while Charleston Southern improves to 16-28 (4-13 BSC).

Just like in Game 1, Charleston Southern went yard to start the game. Unlike the first time around, the home run wasn’t a solo shot, it was a three-run long ball from Bryan Dye.

The Eagles responded in the second when Tyler Asbill hit an RBI to right field, scoring Babe Thomas.

Winthrop added another in the third when Roger Gonzalez hit his sixth home run of the season to cut the Bucs’ lead to 3-2.

Charleston Southern stretched their lead in the fourth by four runs on three hits and a Winthrop error. They continued to pile on the runs with two 2-run homers in the fifth coming from Nate Blanchard and Dye.

Charleston Southern hit their fourth home run of the night in the top of the 6th when Brandon Gragilla hit a long ball to right field for a 12-2 Bucs’ lead.

The Eagles tacked on another three runs the final two innings but the Bucs prevailed 17-5.

Zach Sightler took the loss, pitching 2.1 innings, yielding six hits and three runs.

The Eagles will look to win the weekend series when they host game three of the series Sunday at 2 p.m. at Winthrop Ballpark.

Softball: The regular season came to a conclusion Saturday evening as Winthrop fell 7-5 at Gardner-Webb.

Winthrop finishes the regular season 14-41 overall and 4-20 in the Big South while Gardner-Webb is 21-32 overall and 7-17 in the league. These two teams will square off in the opening game of the Big South Conference Championship in Rock Hill Wednesday morning at 9 a.m. It is a single-elimination play-in game between the 8th and 9th seeds of the league standings. The winner will then join the rest of the league in the double-elimination segment of the championship by facing the top seed later on that day.

“I thought the key to the game was we chased first and second pitches when we shouldn’t have and didn’t get further into the count,” said Winthrop co-head coach Mark Cooke. “I thought the kids played hard and battled.”

This story was originally published May 7, 2016 at 11:08 PM with the headline "Winthrop falls 17-5 to Charleston Southern."