Gaston College baseball improves to 14-0 with four-game weekend sweep
| Final | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | R | H | E | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Sussex County Community College | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 1 | 0 | 6 | 8 | 1 |
|
Gaston College | 5 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 0 | X | 10 | 8 | 0 |
Gaston College's baseball team improved to 14-0 following an impressive four-game weekend sweep of Sussex Community College of New Jersey at Gastonia's Sims Legion Park.
The Rhinos won 15-1 in five innings in Friday's opener, 18-0 in in Friday's nightcap, 12-3 in Saturday's opener and 10-6 in Saturday's nightcap.
"At the end of the day, we've won every game that we've played so there's not much to complain about," Gaston College coach Shohn Doty said. "We had a chance to play a lot of folks and some of those guys were getting their chances to play after coming off injury."
Gaston College's best previous start was 19-0 in their inaugural season of 2022.
An offense that banged out 36 hits in the four games was led by Joey Nicholson (8 hits, 2 doubles, home run, 6 RBIs), David Nicks (6 hits, 4 doubles, 7 RBIs), Logan Ponnett (4 hits, 2 doubles, 1 RBI), Caden Davidson (4 hits, 2 home runs, 11 RBIs), Holden Cooper (4 hits, 2 home runs, 4 RBIs), Nick Diehl (3 hits, 2 home runs, 7 RBIs), Koy Swanson (2 hits, 1 home run, 5 RBIs), Macon Leppert (2 hits, double, home run, 2 RBIs) and Jack Newell (grand slam home run in 2nd game)
On the mound, each of the four starters - Dalton Hazlett (Game 1), Cross Clayton (Game 2), Ryan Brinkley (Game 3) and Brayden Hill (Game 4) - picked up victories and nine relievers were used as the Rhinos were able to show off their extraordinary pitching depth.
Gaston College has one final tuneup before Region 10 action begins next weekend when the Rhinos host Wake Tech on Wednesday at 1 p.m.
Next weekend Gaston College hosts two-time defending Region 10 champion and No. 8-ranked Florence-Darlington Tech in a three-game series that starts with a 1 p.m. Saturday doubleheader and concludes with a 1 p.m. Sunday single game.
"We've got some warts that we've got to clear up but, overall, we're going to be fine," Doty said. "We'll shift our focus to Wake Tech and then work on FloDar. We know all of those games are going to be close games and execution will be key.
"So we're going to try to get healthy and start Region 10 play against a really good Florence team."