GREENSBORO, N.C. – The UNC Greensboro (UNCG) baseball team fell 8-7 to The Citadel Bulldogs while competing in The Southern Conference (SoCon) on Friday afternoon at UNCG Baseball Stadium.

The Citadel opened the scoring with three runs on four hits in the first inning. The game began with Phillips Daniels and TJ Anderson hitting back-to-back singles to get on base. After the first out was recorded, Anthony Hausner chopped a single over the third baseman and into left field to score Daniels. Thomas Rollauer then laid down a sacrifice bunt, which allowed Anderson to score. Tobin drove in the final run of the rally when he blooped a single into shallow center to score Hausner, which made it 3-0.

Brantley Truitt got the Spartans on the board with a solo home run over the wall in left-center during the bottom of the second, cutting the deficit to 3-1 after two innings.

The Bulldogs tacked on two more runs in the third inning after Travis Elliott led off with a triple down the line in right before scoring on an RBI groundout by Hausner. Rollauer then singled to left and advanced to second on a throwing error before moving over to third in the next at-bat thanks to another base knock from Lane Tobin. Rollauer tallied a run by scoring on a groundout back to the pitcher by Garrett Dill.

The Spartans scored their second run of the afternoon in the bottom half of the third inning. After Luke Holland hit a leadoff double to left-center, he advanced to third on a balk and later scored on a blooped hit into left-center by Jose Perez. After three innings, the Bulldogs were holding a 5-2 lead.
 
After two batters reached on singles to start the fourth inning, Anderson doubled to left-center to score one. The Spartans kept a second runner from scoring on the double with a defensive relay to the plate, starting with Truitt finding Jacob Budzik at short before firing a strike to Jacob Dilley for an out. However, the run that scored prior extended the Bulldogs' lead to 6-2.

After The Citadel hit a sacrifice fly to center to score a run, UNCG rallied for five runs on four hits while batting around its order to tie the game, 7-7. Truitt doubled and then made it home on a single to right-center by Luke Jenkins. Branton Jernigan had a pitch graze off his helmet with the bases loaded to score a second run. Jeremy Wolf then lined a triple in the left-center alley, which scored three runs to tie it at 7-7.

The Bulldogs took the lead back in the top of the eighth inning to eventually win, 8-7. Anderson got it done by bunting the ball back to the pitcher, which allowed Patel to score the go-ahead run from third on a squeeze play.

PITCHING RECORDS:
Maddox Webb: W, 4-0
Danny Thompson Jr.: 2-2

NOTES:

• Truitt led the Spartans with three hits and scored twice while having one RBI.
• Wolf had two hits, including a triple for three RBI.
• Perez finished with two hits and the team's only stolen base.
• Holland scored twice for UNCG.
• Sam Murchison and Thompson Jr. pitched for UNCG and combined for seven strikeouts.
• The Bulldogs had the upper hand in hits, 17-10.

RECORDS:
UNCG: 18-25, 7-6 SoCon
CIT: 24-19, 8-5 SoCon

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The Spartans will face the Bulldogs in game two of the weekend series on Saturday at 7:00 p.m. at UNCG Baseball Stadium.

All regular season baseball home games are free admission. The concessions at UNCG Baseball Stadium are now open. Bringing in outside food is not permitted and pets are not allowed into the stadium.