Gaston College sweeps Southeastern, ready to host No. 2 ranked team in the country

Gaston College opened its four-game weekend at Sims Legion Park on Saturday with another pair of pitching gems in a doubleheader sweep of Southeastern Community College.

The Rhinos shut out the visiting Rams 5-0 in the opener, then rallied from their first deficit of the season for a 6-1 win in the nightcap.

Gaston College, which recorded two shutouts last weekend, extended their scoreless innings streak to 21 1-3 innings on Saturday before yielding a run to Southeastern Community College in the top of the fourth inning.

But the Rhinos responded with a three-run bottom of the frame - all after two outs and none aboard - to spark the comeback victory.

"It's where we wanted to be," Gaston College coach Shohn Doty said. "We talked about it: We can't go beat Walters State until we beat Southeastern. And that's what we did. We're 4-0 and have the No. 2 team in the country coming in tomorrow so there's a lot of positives."

The Rhinos (4-0) host Walters State, Tennessee, in Sunday's 1 p.m. doubleheader. The visiting Senators are a perennial National Junior College Athletic Association with one NJCAA World Series title and 11 World Series appearances that include a third-place finish in last year's event.

"What a great opportunity for our guys to see where we are," Doty said. "We're trying to be a perennial top 10, top 15 team in the country and here we get a chance to see what that looks like. I'm looking forward to seeing how our guys respond tomorrow."

In the opener, Virginia Tech transfer Kyle McKernan struck out four and yielded four hits and one walk.

"I felt really good out there," said McKernan, who yielded two hits in the first inning and two over the next 5 2-3 innings. "That first inning was a little rough but then I got my groove on and the six innings went really well."

Southeastern (2-3) had runners on first and second with one out in the first before McKernan coaxed a fly ball to shallow right field and got a strikeout to end the Rams' best threat of the opening game.

Gaston College used speed to manufacture its first two runs as Wade Kelly and Andrew Muraco both scored off a wild pitch with two out in the bottom of the first. The Rhinos later scored twice in the fifth on RBI singles from Enrique Wood and Kelly and tallied once more in the sixth on Pierson Gunnell's two-out RBI single.

Kelly led the four-hit attack with two hits and one RBI.

In the nightcap, Hunter Shew started and went four innings for the victory with David Sande (2 innings) and Derek Vartanian (1 inning) coming on in relief to retire the last nine batters in order.

Trailing 1-0 in the bottom of the fourth, Miller St. John, Wood and Konni Durschlag had back-to-back-to-back two-out RBI singles for a 3-1 lead.

Later, St. John later added a squeeze bunt RBI single and Durschlag a RBI double and showed double steal later in the three-run sixth to close out the scoring.

Durschlag and Wood had two hits apiece to lead the 8-hit attack with Durschlag and St. John getting two RBIs apiece.