Southern Wesleyan defeats No. 1 Lee

Friday, January 1, 1904

Thomas Floyd went 2-for-3 with two RBIs as Southern Wesleyan pulled off a big NAIA baseball upset Friday night in Cleveland. SWU and pitcher Matt Craig defeated top-ranked Lee University 4-2 in the first game of their Southern States Athletic Conference weekend series.

The teams play a doubleheader starting at noon today at Olympic Field.

Lee (34-9, 18-4) scored its runs Friday in the last two innings on RBIs by Karsten Strieby and Brandon Rader. Strieby, Roberto Duran and Danny Canela each had two hits in defeat. Michael Hyman was 2-for-4 for SWU (16-25, 7-15).

St. Andrews 11, Bryan 7: At Dayton, Michael Durig knocked in three runs with a homer and three teammates had three hits each as the North Carolina team won the opener of the Appalachian Athletic Conference series. Grant Zawadzki and Cody Rhinehart homered for Bryan (23-19, 6-10), while Joey Underwood had two RBIs and Kevin Layne, Jess Cartner and Chris Jeffries each was 2-for-4.

Ninth-ranked Tennessee Wesleyan won 8-3 at Reinhardt, improving the Bulldogs to 32-13 overall and 14-2 in the AAC.

Tennessee Temple 12-3, Hiwassee 4-4: At Signal Mountain, in a doubleheader moved from AT&T Field, Temple's Sean Leitstein and Josh Thomas each was 4-for-7 and Brandon Blome was 3-for-3 with two RBIs in the first game and had two hits and another RBI in game two, but the Crusaders went 1-1 for the day and are 16-16 for the season.

Hunter Giles pitched a six-hitter with no walks and six strikeouts in the opener, when all four Tigers runs were unearned, and Brett Bartley was 2-for-4 with two RBIs while Dustin Crumley doubled and singled for Temple. Hiwassee's Josh Cassidy brought in the winning run in game two with a two-out infield single in the eighth inning.

Huntingdon 6, Covenant 4: On Lookout Mountain, Sterling Witt was 2-for-4 with a triple and two RBIs for the host Scots, but four unearned runs helped the Hawks win with six hits. Two errors helped them score four in the ninth inning.

Scott Gillespie also was 2-for-4, with an RBI and a run, for Covenant (22-8), ranked sixth in NCCAA Division I. Micah Mabe struck out seven and allowed four hits and one earned run in his seven innings. Joseph Odom homered and batted in another run for Huntingdon (21-9).