Gaston College improves to 15-0 with dominating performance on Wednesday afternoon

A patient and effective offense on a wind-blown Wednesday afternoon at Gastonia's Sims Legion Park saw Gaston College's baseball team improve its record to 15-0 on the season with a 22-5, 7-inning win over Wake Tech.

"We were very patien and had a lot of clutch hits and banged on it pretty good offensively today," Rhinos coach Shohn Doty said. "The wind was blowing in but we put a lot of good swings on balls."

Gaston College had 16 hits, drew 20 walks and had two huge innings - nine runs in the first and seven in the third - and got production up and down the lineup.

Macon Leppert (3 hits, double, 2 walks, 3 RBIs), Gabe Simmons (2 hits, home run, 2 walks, 4 RBIs), Logan Ponnett (2 hits, double, 1 walk, 1 RBI), Koy Swanson (3 walks, 2 RBIs), Nick Diehl (2 hits, 1 RBI), Kandon Zollo (1 hit, double, 2 walks, 2 RBIs) and Holden Cooper (2 hits, double, 2 walks, 2 RBIs) led the offense.

And six pitchers combined on a five-hitter with nine strikeouts. Starter and winner Zach Kimmel and reliever Jack Aurelius went two strong innings apiece and reliever Drake Purvis (1 inning) was one of two key performers to return from injury to play on Wednesday; Simmons was the other.

"It's a 'next man up' mentality and we hope to get other players back soon," Doty said. "We're happy with where we are and we continue to find depth in our pitching half.
"As I told the guys today after the game, it's good to be 15-0. We know we have a big series this weekend, but win or lose, it's not going to define our season. We want to play hard and play well and our goal is to play our best in May."

The Rhinos host two-time defending Region 10 champion and No. 8-ranked Florence-Darlington Tech this weekend for a three-game series that opens the region schedule for both teams.