Winthrop Rallies Late to Avoid Flashes' Sweep

Sunday, March 1

Rock Hill, SC

1:00 p.m.

Kent State University

6-4

Winthrop University

9-2

KENT STATE

Winthrop

Winthrop Rallies Late to Avoid Flashes' Sweep

3/1/2020 4:24:00 PM | Baseball

Box Score

ROCK HILL, SC- Winthrop strung together five consecutive hits in the bottom of the ninth and rallied to a 5-4 win over Kent State in the series finale on Sunday afternoon.

The Flashes had broken a 2-2 tie in the top of the ninth on two-out hits from Grant Vera and Ben Carew but it wouldn't be enough to thwart the Eagles' rally.

The Eagles scored first on Sunday afternoon, breaking through in the third inning on a pair of two-out hits off starter Ryan Lane. Winthrop would take that lead into the fifth inning when Nick Elsen and Kevin Dobos went back-to-back with solo home runs to give the Flashes their first lead of the game.

It would be a short-lived advantage as Winthrop used a lead-off double and one-out single to tie the game at two. That would be all Lane would allow on Sunday, limiting the damage to two earned runs despite allowing 10 hits. Jack Zimmerman would come in and toss two innings of hitless relief.

The game remained tied into the ninth as both teams had missed opportunities to score in the later innings. Winthrop had runners on the corners in the seventh and Kent State had two on in the eighth. The eighth inning would end in some controversy as Mack Timbrook was called out after he was ruled to not do enough to get out of the way of a pitch that hit him.

The wild ninth inning looked to give Kent State all of the momentum after the clutch hits by Vera and Carew. In the bottom of the ninth, Winthrop beat two throws to the plate in bang-bang plays, ultimately scoring three times to walk-off the Flashes.

Kent State does take two-of-three in the series and sits at 6-4 on the season. It will be a busy upcoming week with a mid-week game on Wednesday at West Virginia before a weekend slate at Liberty. First pitch on Wednesday from Morgantown is set for 4 p.m.