Rogers hits his second home run of the season

Box Score
HIGH POINT, March 27, 2008 – The North Carolina A&T baseball team remained winless away from War Memorial Stadium with a 7-4 loss to High Point at Williard Stadium on Thursday. Nick Rogers led the Aggies with a 2-for-4 night with a RBI and a home run. After winning seven of their last eight games going into this week, the Aggies have now lost two straight and dropped to 10-13 on the season.

Like they did Wednesday against Appalachian State, the Aggies gave multiple runs in the early innings. It was unfortunate because the Aggies got off to a great start as well. Leading 1-0 in the second, Rogers led off the inning with a home run over the left field wall. High Point starter Chad Jennings retired the next two batters, but began to struggle with his control afterward.

He walked Lester Rivenbark, allowed Rivenbark to move to second on a wild pitch before proceeding to walk Nick Mayo. Two more wild pitches allowed Rivenbark to score for a 3-0 Aggies lead. Jennings control problems continued when he hit Joe McIntyre with a pitch to put runners on third and first for team-RBI leader Jeremy Jones. Jennings would get Jones to groundout to end the inning.

High Point was able to answer the Aggies early start with five runs over second and third innings to take a 5-3 lead. The Aggies pulled to within one thanks to a Neil Rosser RBI single that scored C.J. Beatty who reached on a single.

The Panthers put more distance between themselves and the Aggies in the sixth and they did off of one of the Aggies best pitchers. Johnson, the Aggies ERA leader going into the game, walked Jeff Cowan to start the inning. He followed by striking out Pablo Rasario. But Johnson walked Randy Schwartz to put runners at first and second.

The Aggies ran into more trouble as a wild pitch moved the runners into scoring position and an error allowed Cowan to score. A balk by Johnson closed out the scoring as it allowed Schwartz to score to give the Panthers some cushion. Jamie Serber, Jeremy Berg and Bubba O’Donnell came on to shut the Aggies down over the next 3.1 innings.

The three pitchers held the Aggies to one hit didn’t allow a run and walked just one to close out the game. O’Donnell earned the save while Cory Swickle (1-0) was awarded the win. Jonathan Smith (0-1) was given the loss. The Aggies return to action on Saturday when they play a conference doubleheader against Florida A&M at War Memorial Stadium, starting at 1 p.m.