FARMVILLE, VA – Charleston Southern moved back to a winning mark in Big South play on Friday evening with a 14-3 series opener victory at Longwood. With the win, they now sit at 10-9 in conference play and in a tie for third in the standings with Longwood and Radford.
The Buccaneer offense exploded for an early advantage as they tallied six runs in the second inning.
Kain Collins drove in a pair of runs to start the scoring with a single to left. This was followed by a two RBI double to right by
Tyler Wright and concluded with a two-run homer over the fence in right by
Alex Marot. In the bottom half, the Lancers got a run back with them grounding into a double play when the runners were on the corners.
In the third,
Caden Wolfley tallied the Bucs' seventh of the night with an RBI single to right field. The sixth saw Marot homer for the second time of the day with this one scoring two runs as well, moving the lead to 9-1. Longwood responded with a run in the bottom half.
In the seventh, Tuupo reached first on an error by the shortstop when the bases were loaded to score the tenth run of the day, their 20
th time reaching double digits in the category in 2026. The next batter was Marot who drove a single into the gap in right center to score another two runners. Longwood scored one in the bottom half of the inning again.
Charleston Southern finished off their scoring in the ninth with
Mason Reising getting a triple to straightaway center that scored Marot.
Nathan Martinez had an RBI single to right center to score Reising and place the score at 14-3 which proved to be the final.
Marot had a career day at the plate, going 3-3 and drawing three walks to reach successfully on all six of his plate appearances. He drove in six runs and scored three times to go along with his two home runs. As a team, they finished with 17 hits with Collins also having three on the day. Wolfley,
Ethan Reader and
Blake Edgmon also had multiple with two apiece as everyone in the starting lineup had at least one. They drew nine walks as a team with Marot's leading the team and Edgmon drawing two.
On the mound,
Titus Von Kapff tossed 6.2 innings of work to claim his sixth win of the spring. He threw a total of 132 pitches for the most of his career and now the sixth consecutive start that he has reached triple figures in the category. He allowed three earned runs to go with five walks and eight hits. Additionally, he struck out six batters.
Christian Krause was the lone arm used out of the bullpen following the stellar start from Von Kapff to keep the rest of the bullpen available for the weekend. Krause retired a pair of batters by strikeout, allowed two hits and one walk and did not allow a run to score while tossing 2.1 frames.
The teams will return to Buddy Bolding Stadium on Saturday at 3 p.m. with the game to be available live on ESPN+. The series finale is scheduled for Sunday at 1 p.m.
