HARDEEVILLE, S.C. — With a storm bearing down on the Lowcountry, University of South Carolina Beaufort baseball coach Bryan Lewallyn scrambled Friday morning to move up the start time of his team's Sun Conference opener against Southeastern in hopes of getting the game in before the bad weather moved in.
The Sand Sharks made sure they moved up the end of the game, too, ending it after seven innings on the run-rule after pounding 22 hits in a 15-4 victory — their seventh consecutive win overall and their 11th straight at Richard Gray Sports Complex.
The game originally was scheduled for 2 p.m., but the start time was pushed up to 12:30 p.m. because of thunderstorms forecast for the late afternoon. The Sand Sharks (12-2, 1-0 Sun Conference) turned the early start into a quick start, scoring three runs in the first and adding another in the second against Fire ace Justin Mauldin.
The Fire (8-7, 4-3) tied it with four runs in the fourth, but USCB answered with four in the bottom of the inning against Mauldin (3-1) and tacked on seven more over the next two innings against reliever Michael Barrett to bring the 10-run rule into play.
Sand Sharks ace Michael Heesch (3-0) settled down after the bumpy fourth inning and threw a complete game, allowing six hits and three earned runs while striking out eight. Heesch has struck out eight or more in three of his past four starts and has won all three.
Everyone in the Sand Sharks' lineup had at least one hit, and eight of them had at least two. Ty Main, Erik Armstrong, Dylan Nasiatka, Conald Mansfield and R.J. Neal led the way with three hits apiece. Nasiatka drove in four runs, and Armstrong and Mansfield each had three RBIs.
Neal had two RBIs to get within one of Spencer Jackson's all-time school record of 117.
USCB's 11-game home winning streak is the second-longest in school history. The Sand Sharks won their last 14 home games in 2010 before losing their home opener in 2011.
USCB will celebrate homecoming when the same two teams play a doubleheader starting at 1 p.m. Saturday. Left-hander Adam Miller and right-hander Kyle McCullough are slated to be the starting pitchers for the Sand Sharks.
