William & Mary jumped out to a 4-0 lead, then held off a late-inning charge from host Norfolk State to take a 6-5 victory on Wednesday afternoon at Marty L. Miller Field.
The Tribe (11-13) led 4-0 after the top of the fourth, but NSU (7-14) rallied to get within 6-5 in the later innings. The Tribe win wasn’t secure until W&M reliever Brett Koehler dodged a bases-loaded jam in the bottom of the ninth.
W&M took a 1-0 lead in the top of the first. Buster Gean walked, then advanced to third on Jonathan Slattery’s double. Ryan Williams plated Gean with a sacrifice fly for the game’s first run.
The Tribe tacked on two more runs in the third. Gean drove in one with a groundout and Slattery followed with an RBI single to make it 3-0.
Devin White’s squeeze bunt gave the Tribe a 4-0 lead in the fourth.
NSU cut its deficit in half with single runs in the fifth and sixth. James Taylor’s RBI single in the fifth got NSU on the board, and consecutive doubles by Chris Warren and Sammy Serafine brought the Spartans within 4-2 in the sixth.
Williams stretched the W&M lead back to four runs with a two-run double in the top of the seventh. But the Spartans answered right back with three runs in the bottom of the seventh. TiQuan Griffin led off with a single and scored on a two-out Tribe error. Later, John Lynch delivered a two-run single, scoring Brandon Hairston and Chris Joyce, to cut NSU’s deficit to 6-5.
But John Farrell pitched a scoreless eighth and Koehler a scoreless ninth to hold NSU at bay. But it wasn’t without some drama. Taylor led off the bottom of the ninth with a double to left-center field off Koehler. Hairston was then hit by a pitch. John Rasberry followed with a sacrifice bunt to move the runners to second and third bases with one out.
But Koehler fanned Joyce for the second out of the inning, then walked Lynch intentionally to load the bases and set up a force at any base. Koehler got ahead of Chris Warren 0-2, but Warren worked the count to 3-2. Koehler then struck Warren out on a high fastball to end the game and earn his fourth save of the year.
Brett Goodloe (3-0) earned the win for the Tribe. He allowed eight hits and two runs in 5.2 innings. Goodloe walked one and fanned five. Ryan Davis (0-2) took the loss for NSU, allowing four runs, three earned, in 3.2 innings of work.
Slattery was 3-for-5 and Williams knocked in three runs for the Tribe (10-13).
Taylor, Lynch, Warren and Griffin had two hits each for NSU, which out-hit the Tribe 11-9.
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