VMI Baseball: Keydets drop series finale at Furman

Furman used a six-run fifth inning to pull away and defeat the VMI baseball team 13-5 Sunday in a Southern Conference game.

Keydet junior Zak Kent started on the hill and struck out eight Paladins to set the school single-season strikeout record (117), passing Josh Winder’s mark of 112 set in 2017.

VMI scored in the first, but Furman posted three runs in the first and one in the second to take a 4-1 advantage. Josh Hollifield opened the fifth with a double and scored on a Ryan Hatten single. The Keydets later scored an unearned run to cut the lead to 4-3. Furman scored all six of its runs in the fifth with two outs. Jake Huggins ripped a two-run double in the seventh for VMI.

Huggins went 2-3 with a walk and Cody Warner walked twice. Hatten had a hit and a walk and Jon Clines also had a hit. Sam Ewald finished the game on the mound and didn’t allow a run in his 1 2/3 innings.

David Webel, Jabari Richards and Dax Roper each had three hits for Furman (20-27/9-9).

Callen Nuccio had a 17-game hitting streak snapped Sunday, the Keydets longest of the season.

VMI (14-35/8-13) will host UNC-Greensboro (UNCG) this weekend in the Keydets’ final regular-season SoCon series. The games are scheduled for Friday (6 p.m.), Saturday (4 p.m.) and Sunday (1 p.m.).