EMU baseball defeats Southern Virginia, 8-2

EMU had a successful wrap to its season-opening 10-game home stand on Wednesday, rolling over Southern Virginia 8-2 in Harrisonburg.  The Royals improve to 8-2 with the non-conference win, the best start in Coach Ben Spotts’ four seasons.

Eastern Mennonite gets to test themselves against ODAC-rival Roanoke this weekend, playing a twinbill in Salem on Saturday.  The Maroons finished fifth in the conference last spring and eliminated EMU from the 2015 ODAC Tournament.

Despite a cold day, the Royals seemed unfazed by Wednesday’s windy weather getting a runner in scoring position in every inning.  They hit the scoreboard in the second, getting back-to-back two-out RBI singles from Zach Roberts (Stuarts Draft, Va./Riverheads) and Griffin Stanley (Roanoke, Va./Cave Spring).

Southern Virginia snuck in a two-out unearned run in the third, but EMU strung together four hits in their half of the inning, withKyle Mathews‘ (Chesapeake, Va./Great Bridge) double into the right field corner scoring the final of three runs, bumping the lead to 5-1.

The score stayed that way until the sixth.  It looked like the inning would end quietly despite a leadoff single from Roberts, as a pair of fielder’s choices quickly made for two outs.  But the next four men reached base, including Kyle Salladay‘s (Chesapeake, Va./Grassfield) two-run single, as another three spot made it 8-1.

The Knights got their second run in similar fashion as their first, coming as an unearned run scored with two outs in the eighth.  But the entire pitching staff did their job to shut down SVU.

Starter Josh Sydenstricker (Virginia Beach, Va./Ocean Lakes) faced just 18 batters in 5.0+ innings, striking out four on just two hits as he improved to 2-0.  John Dudley (Raphine, Va./Riverheads), Kyle Johnson (Nathalie, Va./Rustburg) and Garry Ormsby (Maple Shade, N.J./Maple Shade) combined to give up only five hits and no earned runs.

Salladay finished with four of EMU’s 17 hits, going 4-5 with two RBIs and a run.  Kyle Armstrong (Greenville, Va./Riverheads) was 3-5 with two runs and an RBI.  Joe Hall (Gladys, Va./Rustburg) and Ryan Hedrick (Bridgewater, Va./Turner Ashby) each knocked two hits with two runs and one RBI.

After this weekend’s ODAC doubleheader, the Royals head to California for four games in the Los Angeles area next week.