No. 7 Gaston College rallies late to take 11-inning road victory

No. 7 Gaston College's baseball team had to work overtime on Wednesday to improve to 25-2 overall.

The Rhinos rallied in the top of the ninth, 10th and 11th innings to take a 17-14 victory at Guilford Tech.

The win increases Gaston College's winning streak to six games and was its fourth win in the last four days.

"I told the team after the game that resiliency, toughness and the will to win can overcome mistakes - and we made a ton of mistakes," Rhinos coach Shohn Doty said. "We really haven't pitched it well at all but we've found ways to win.
"We just found a way to grind it out. I'm proud of the guys and proud of the effort. Winning can be really hard and we keep finding ways to win. That's a special quality and something this team seems to have."

The contest is only the third extra inning games in school history and tied for second-longest game in school history.

The longest game was an 8-7, 17-inning win over Frontier Community College on March 2, 2024 at Gastonia's Sims Legion Park. Wednesday's game tied a 4-3, 11-inning victory over Mitchell Community College at Gaston College's old on-campus field in 1971.

In Wednesday's win, the Rhinos' offense had 15 hits highlighted by Trey Hitchcock's solo home runs in the ninth inning and 10th innings rallies. Joey Nicholson added a game-tying two-run home run in the ninth inning and Koy Swanson's sacrifice fly and Tyler Cook's two-run RBI single in the 11th proved decisive.

Jack Aurelius, the seventh and last Gaston College pitcher used, went 3 1/3 innings with five strikeouts to pick up the victory.

Caden Davidson (3 hits, 2 RBIs), Logan Ponnett (2 hits), Nicholson (2 hits, double, home run, 3 RBIs), Nick Diehl (2 hits, 1 RBI) and Hitchcock (2 hits, 2 home runs, 2 RBIs) led the Rhinos' offense.

Hitchcock came off the bench to spark late rallies.

"We always talk about working while you wait and Trey comes off the bench in the ninth and leads off the ninth with a solo home run and leads off the 10th with another home run," Doty said. "So I'm really proud of that young man."

Gaston College returns to Region 10 league play against USC Salkehatchie for a three-game series at Gastonia's Sims Legion Park. The first two games are a 1 p.m. Saturday doubleheader with the finale at 1 p.m. on Sunday.

"We're going to take a much-needed day off in the middle of the week tomorrow," Doty said. "We need it. We just need to get healed up and ready to roll on the weekend."