Box Score Junior Luke Emmett continued his dominant stretch on the mound tossing seven strong innings on Sunday afternoon as the #5/7 Emory University baseball program defeated the North Carolina Wesleyan Battling Bishops 8-1 to complete the three-game sweep. The Eagles have now won seven straight and 14 of their last 16 to run their overall record to 27-7 on the season. N.C. Wesleyan falls to 22-16 with the loss and have now lost six straight.
Emmett allowed just one run on five hits in his seven innings of work to pick up his second win of the season. The junior southpaw struck out a career-best eight batters and walked just one in the outing. Senior Paul Merolla and sophomore Rhett Stuart both pitched a scoreless inning with one strikeout to finish the game.
At the plate, senior Dylan Eisner and junior Brian Hernandez each had three-hit performances and Eisner along with junior Philip Maldari both drove in two runs each to lead the offense.
The Eagles continued its streak of scoring in the first inning as they plated three runs in the bottom of the first to jump out to an early 3-0 lead. Emory has now scored at least one run in the first inning in four straight ballgames. Eisner had a RBI single to score Wilson Morgan before Maldari picked up a RBI on a ground out to second to bring home Hernandez. Senior Chris Slivka hit a grounder to third with two outs in the frame but it was miffed by the third basemen allowing Eisner to score on the play.
The Battling Bishops made it 3-1 in the third inning, pushing across a run on a double play. But the Eagles answered with two in the bottom of the inning. With two outs in the frame, Eisner and Maldari collected back-to-back run score doubles to make it 5-1.
Later in the seventh, Emory tacked on three more runs for the seven run advantage as Slivka and junior Chris Young notched RBI base knocks for the Eagles. Hernandez socred the other Eagles run in the inning coming home on a balk call.
Emory will look to keep the momentum going with a pair of mid-week games. First on Tuesday, the Eagles travel to LaGrange College for a tilt at 7:00pm before hosting Oglethorpe University on Wednesday afternoon in a makeup of February 24th's rainout.
