March 25, 2001
VMI Tops Furman 6-4, Win Two of Three From Paladins
Greenville, SC-- Phil Hendrix pitched four innings of effective relief and got timely run support with a three-run VMI sixth inning to help lead the Keydets to a 6-4 win over Furman in Southern Conference baseball action Sunday afternoon at Furman Stadium.
With the victory VMI (8-15, 2-7 SoCon) claimed two of three games from Furman (17-10, 7-4 SoCon) in the weekend series and earned its sixth win in the last seven outings.
Trailing 2-1 after three innings, VMI took advantage of two Paladin errors to take a 3-2 lead in the fourth on Zach Kennedy's RBI double and a fielding error by Furman second baseman Cole Hubka, which allowed Kennedy to score from second.
VMI scored three runs in the sixth inning off Paladin starter Toby David (5-2), getting an RBI double from Jason Annis, an RBI groundout by Andy Barden, and a run scoring single by Jon Schott to extend its lead to 6-2.
From that point VMI turned to Hendrix, who helped the Keydets maintain their lead despite surrendering single runs in the seventh and eighth innings. The sophomore righthander worked his way out of a first-and-third, none out situation in the seventh and bases loaded trouble in the eighth, getting Danny Rueckel on a ground out to shortstop to end the inning. Hendrix retired the Paladins in order in the ninth for his fourth save of the season.
Matt Liffick (3-2) starting pitcher surrendered only three hits and pitched around five walks in 5.0 innings of work to gain the victory.
Jon Schott went 2-for-3 with an RBI and Matt Ramsey collected two hits in four at bats to lead the Keydets' 10-hit attack. Zach Kennedy paced VMI with two RBI, going 1-for-4.
Furman's Richie Dean led all hitters with a 3-for-4 performance, and Paladin designated hitter Adam Etherington went 1-for-3 to extend his school record hitting to 23 games. Furman, however, managed only seven hits and committed four errors, which accounted for four of VMI's six runs.
The Paladins return to action on Tuesday when they take on Charleston Southern in North Charleston in a 2:30 p.m. game.