BRISTOL, Tenn. – The Erskine College baseball team (10-17, 8-7 CC) was defeated by King University (10-15, 7-8 CC) in two out of three games in a weekend series at the King Baseball Field on Friday and Saturday.

Late-inning rallies from the hosts proved to be the difference in each of the first two games of the series, but the Fleet earned an extra-inning win in the finale, thanks to a go-ahead home run from Noah Hill in the eleventh inning.

THE ESSENTIALS 
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HOW IT HAPPENED
Game 1: King 11-9 Erskine
The Fleet got RBIs in three of its first four innings at the plate behind run-scoring at-bats from Danny Villafane, Drew Potts, and Pierce Radke to give Erskine a 4-3 lead. The Tornado tied the game in the bottom half of the fourth and re-took the lead in the sixth, but the Fleet had an answer of their own in the eighth. A two-run single from Ricky Dober got Erskine back within a run and then Jack Luthren was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded to tie the game at six. Moments later, Jacob Platt beat out an infield single that scored Dober to fire the Fleet in front and Carson Yates' sacrifice fly capped a five-run top of the eighth. However, King responded with a five-spot of its own in the bottom half and the Fleet's attempt at a ninth-inning rally fell just short in a heartbreaking loss to open the weekend.

Game 2: King 7-5 Erskine
Despite the tough loss on Friday, the Fleet began Saturday with a big three-run top of the first inning, thanks to clutch hits from Pierce Radke and Danny Villafane. Mason McManus' RBI in the second extended Erskine's early lead to 4-0. King got on the board in the fourth, but a wild pitch in the Fleet's half of the sixth inning regained Erskine's four-run lead. But, similar to Friday, the Tornado posted a crooked-number in a late inning to stun the Fleet.

Game 3: Erskine 6-5 King (Final / 11 innings)
Hoping to salvage the final game of the weekend, Noah Hill started the scoring with a solo home run in the third inning, and a Danny Villafane RBI single in the fourth put the Fleet back on top. Drew Potts' RBI triple catalyzed a two-run fifth inning to extend Erskine's lead to 4-1 at the halfway point. However, King clawed back into the game before tying it with a run in the ninth. But, Potts stepped up in the field with a clutch throw to home plate to gun down the would-be winning run and send the game to extra innings. After each team was unable to score in the 10th, Hill delivered again, with a leadoff blast in the 11th, his second of the game. A Tornado error toward the end of the half-inning allowed Stephen Kriner to score an important insurance run, which was the difference as Kendall Brewer escaped trouble in the bottom half to give the Fleet a one-run win in extras in the third and final game of the weekend.

THE PLAYER
Noah Hill started two of the three games in the series, going 3-8 at the plate, including a 2-for-4 showing with a pair of home runs in the finale. Hill's big fly in the 11th inning of Game 3 was the go-ahead swing for the Fleet in their victory in the series finale.

WHAT'S NEXT?
Erskine returns home to take on USC Beaufort (4-20, 0-15 PBC) on Tuesday at 2 p.m. The Sandsharks beat the Fleet in ten innings by a score of 8-7 when the teams met in Bluffton back in late February.

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