Defense Struggles in 13-7 Loss to Radford

Tyler Thornburg hit his fourth homerun in the last two games

CHARLESTON, S.C. – Charleston Southern committed six errors Friday afternoon and despite late runs, fell 13-7 to Radford in the first game of the three-game series at Buccaneer Ballpark.

Derek Smith, Tom Burkett and Bentley Christmas each recorded three base hits as CSU actually out-hit Radford 15-14. Radford improves their season mark to 20-15 with an 11-6 Big South record, while the Bucs fall to 13-29, 8-12.

Radford used a quality start by Aerik Taylor (5-4) to get out to a big lead. Taylor, who went 6.0 innings and gave up just one unearned run. It took CSU a total of six pitchers to get through the game.

Sophomore hurler Anthony Markham (2-5) took the loss, giving up seven earned runs on seven hits in 4.0 innings of work. After early trouble, Markham settled down and shut down the Highlanders in the second, third and fourth innings. The fifth led to more trouble and eventually the end of the day for Markham as Radford finished the inning with six runs and a 9-1 lead. 

An error and a wild pitch led to two more Radford runs in the sixth, while a two-run homerun by Alex Gregory in the seventh blew the RU lead up to 13-1. Gregory finished with four hits on the day, while Nick Minter and Reggie Keen each had three base-knocks for Radford.

After a pinch-hit two-run homer by Ben Stechschulte started the momentum and scored Smith, Tyler Thornburg hit his fourth homerun in the last two games, and 11th of the season to score Patrick Dolan, cutting the lead to 13-5.

A double by Keith Hustedt to start the eighth started another rally as he was brought home by an RBI single by Smith. Dolan pounded a single into right to score smith and cut into the lead a little more.

The final attempt to make things interesting fell short in the bottom of the ninth as Christmas and Smith singles, sandwiched around a Mark Perry walk, loaded the bases. Radford brought in their closer Jason Patten and he did his job, inducing a ground ball to end the game.

The two teams will take the field again tomorrow for a double header starting at 11:30 a.m. Charleston Southern will honor their 2009 senior class, as well as alumni in attendance before the game.