CHARLESTON – The Buccaneers extended their historic start to the year by defeating Elon on Sunday by a final score of 12-7 to sweep the series with
Chandler Tuupo setting the career RBIs record in the contest. Charleston Southern now stands at 7-0, a record that they have never held before in school history.
Elon jumped out to a big lead, tallying one in the first and then a four spot in the second. After two innings, the Phoenix already had a 5-0 lead, but it did not last for long.
In the bottom of the third,
Blake Edgmon and
Kain Collins led the frame off with walks and the bases got loaded with
Caden Wolfley getting a single. Tuupo cleared the bases with a double to right and broke the school record for career RBIs on the play, passing Jordan Haar who had 147 in his playing career from 2002-05 with Tuupo now having 149. Later in the inning,
Alex Marot scored on a
Nathan Martinez sacrifice flyout, cutting their deficit to 5-4.
Elon tallied one in the top of the fourth to push their lead to 6-4, but the Buccaneer offense exploded in their half, tallying seven and jumping to a 11-6 lead. Tuupo had a three-run home run to take the lead at 7-6 with Edgmon and Wolfley also scoring.
Tyler Wright had a two RBI single with the bases loaded followed by an RBI single from
Ethan Reader and Edgmon sacrifice fly to finish off the scoring.
In the fifth, each team tallied another run, placing the score at 12-7 which is what proved to be the final score.
Tuupo led the team at the plate with his record day. He had three hits and six RBIs to lead the squad in both categories. Wolfley and Edgmon each had two hits on the day as well to finish with multiple. Wright was the lone other Buc with multiple RBIs with two. As a team they had 12 hits and six walks drawn.
Matt Gallant had the start and threw the first three innings, and they turned to
Hunter Porter first out of the bullpen.
Christian Krause earned the win allowing just one earned run in his 2.0 frames of work.
Aydan Smith entered in the sixth and threw the final four innings allowing just one hit to pick up the save and had five strikeouts.
Charleston Southern returns to action on Wednesday, February 25 hosting UNC Wilmington. The first pitch is scheduled for 4 p.m. at Nielsen Field @ CSU Ballpark with the game to be available live on ESPN+.
