Beatty, Rogers record three hits apiece

Box Score
GREENSBORO, March 16, 2008 – North Carolina A&T’s pitching was excellent throughout the Aggies three-game series with Radford. But on Sunday, it was not enough as the Aggies lost the third game of the series, 4-2 in baseball action at War Memorial Stadium on Sunday. Over the three-game series, Aggie pitchers surrendered just five earned runs.

Aggie starter Donald Howerton didn’t fair as well as the Aggies previous two starters – Tim Johnson and John Primus. Howerton did leave the game with the scored tied at 2, having pitched 4.1 innings, striking out four and surrendering four hits. C.J. Beatty and Nick Rogers led the Aggies offensively by recording three hits apiece.

Howerton had 2-1 lead going into the fifth. Radford’s Ben Toth led off the inning by tripling to center field. Tyren Rivers scored Toth on a single to tie the game at 2. Rivers went to second on a balk and when Howerton walked Alex Gregory, head coach Keith Shumate turned to Chris Eggers to get the Aggies out of the inning without any more runs scoring.

Eggers did his job by getting Nate Toth to ground into a double play to end the inning. But Egger surrendered a home run to Gregory in the seventh to give the Highlanders a lead that would not give up as Eggers dropped to 1-2 on the season. The Highlanders added another run in the inning, but the Aggies had a chance to rally in the ninth.

With two outs, Jeremy Jones putting the tying run at the plate by singling up the middle. Beatty, who leads the Aggies in home runs with five, singled to right field to put runners on first and third. But Nelson Santos grounded to short to end the game.

The Aggies are in action again on Tuesday when they face Campbell at home at 3 p.m.