Aggies give up 11 runs in eighth inning

Box Score
SPARTANBURG, S.C., April 1, 2008 – The North Carolina A&T baseball suffered through the second straight game in which one inning turned the tide as S.C. Upstate defeated the Aggies 16-6 Tuesday night at Harley Park.

Jeremy Jones led the Aggies with a 2-for-3 night with two runs scored and a RBI. Nelson Santos, C.J. Beatty, Nick Rogers, James Howard and John Primus all had two hits apiece. The Aggies dropped to 11-16 on the season while Upstate improved to 16-15.

The Aggies got a quality start from Chris Eggers. He went five innings, surrendered three earned runs and struck out four. He received help early on as Jones put the Aggies on the board with an RBI single in the first to score Santos for a 1-0 Aggies lead. N.C. A&T added to its lead in the third.

Beatty opened the inning with a single to right center field. Rogers followed with a double down the left field line to put runners on third and second for Joe McIntyre. McIntyre hit a grounder to second that was good enough to score Beatty from third. After a line out by Neil Rosser, Nick Mayo stepped up and scored Rogers with a single left field to give the Aggies a 3-1 lead.

Howard kept the rally going with a walk, which set up Primus’ RBI single through the left side that scored Mayo. Primus was making his first plate appearance since 2006.

The Aggies led 5-4 going into the sixth when Rogers scored Jones from second with a RBI single to left field. Jones reached on a single and was advanced to second on an infield single by Beatty. The Aggies good times were over from there.

Upstate scored a run in the seventh and went for 11 runs in the eighth. Kyle Bowley helped the Spartans take the lead in the eighth inning, as Upstate put together six hits, five walks and a hit batter.

After Keith Bisgounis walked to lead off, Bowley hit a ball into the right-center field gap for an RBI double to tie the game at six. He scored on the next play, as Eric Guillen reached on a bunt single and the throw to first ended up in right field. From there, the rally continued with the first nine men of the inning reaching base.

The Aggies are back in action 6 p.m., Wednesday when they face UNC Greensboro at NewBridge Bank Park.