The Emory University baseball team completed its four-game series sweep of the WashU Bears Sunday afternoon, taking both games of the doubleheader at Kelly Field in St. Louis, MO.
The Eagles ran their winning streak to seven games with the two seven-inning wins and eclipsed the 20-win mark on the season as they improved to 21-12 overall. All seven wins have come in UAA competition as Emory now stands in firm position of second place in the league standings at 8-4 with four conference games remaining.
The Eagles will have an eight-day hiatus before returning to the diamond Tuesday, April 19th to host No. 3-ranked Birmingham-Southern in the final non-conference game of the regular season. First pitch is set for 3:00 PM at Chappell Park.
Game 1 – Emory 4, WashU 1 (7 innings)
The Emory offense continued where it left off from Saturday, scoring three times in the game's opening two innings en route to the three-run win.
Junior Henry Pelinski and senior Zeke Diamond supplied RBI singles in the top of the first before junior Ellis Schwartz had a run-scoring groundout in the second to put the Eagles ahead early, 3-0.
The Bears got a run back in the second but that was the lone blemish in an otherwise superb outing from the Emory pitching combination of senior Jack Brodsky and junior Mike Golob. Brodsky struck out six while giving up the single run on two hits across his 5.1 innings of work to earn the win. Golob picked up the save, as he faced the minimum over 1.2 innings and struck out two.
Pelinski would tack on an insurance run in the final frame with an RBI single to provide the final margin.
Game 2 – Emory 9, WashU 6 (7 innings)
The Eagles reached double digits in hits for the third time over the weekend as they totaled nine runs on 13 knocks to win the finale.
Pelinski carried over his strong play from game one as he went 3-for-4 with one RBI and was one of five Emory batters to register multi-hit efforts.
WashU struck first in this one, scoring twice in the home half of the first prior to Emory answering with its own two-run inning in the second with RBIs from Jack Masonis and Brok Liu.
An eventful fourth inning saw a 2-2 game blossom into a 7-6 contest as the two dugouts combined for nine runs. The Eagles accounted for five runs in their half of the inning as four players recorded run-scoring plays, led by Liu who put Emory in front with his single to right that plated Pelinski.
After cutting the Eagles lead to one with four in the home half of the fourth, the WashU bats were silenced for the remainder of the afternoon thanks to marvelous pitching performances from senior Kyle Sulkowski and junior Aaron Mishoulam.
Sulkowski secured the win as he tossed 2.1 scoreless innings, retiring seven of the eight batters he faced including five by way of the strikeout. Mishoulman slammed the door in the seventh, collecting the save as he worked a scoreless inning and only allowed one of the four Bears he faced to reach base.