Troy Athletics photo
Junior pitcher Will Carnley Pitches in relief during Troy’s three game road stretch. The Trojans sit at the middle of the pack in the Sun Belt East Division, three spots behind frontrunner Coastal Carolina.
Scott Shelton
Staff Writer
The Troy baseball team took the series against Georgia State last weekend in Atlanta before losing to Samford at Riddle-Pace Field on Tuesday night.
The series win against Georgia State gives the Trojans their third-straight Sun Belt Conference series win.
After the games, the Trojans move to 19-18 overall and 7-8 in the conference with half of the Sun Belt Conference season complete.
In game one of the series on Friday, it took a while for the bats to come out, as the Trojans went scoreless through three innings.
In the fourth inning, Chase Smartt drove in two runs on a left-field single to give the Trojans their first lead of the game.
Smartt totaled four RBI this game in a career high for the senior catcher.
Smartt also reached base all five times he went to the plate.
Rigsby Mosley followed suit with his second home run of the season. Mosley hit his first home run of the season just a few days prior against Alabama State.
Mosley’s bat kept fire when the redshirt sophomore hit a second home run in back-to-back at-bats, becoming the first Trojan in two years to do so since Brandon Lockridge in May 2017.
In the very next at-bat, Drew Frederic hit the Trojans’ third home run of the game and his sixth of the season.
Frederic is now just one home run away from tying his 2018 total of seven home runs.
The panthers inched forward and tied the game at six runs heading into the final inning.
Smartt and Manning Early combined to drive in the final four runs as the Trojans took game one of the series 10-6.
Redshirt junior Cory Gill started the game for the Trojans and pitched six innings. Gill struck out seven batters in a season-high total and improved his season record to 4-1.
Weather again altered the schedule for the Trojans as games two and three were played on Saturday in a doubleheader.
In game two, Troy put runs up early with RBI from Logan Cerny and Sadler Goodwin.
Sophomore pitcher Levi Thomas kept the Panthers scoreless until the fourth inning when they tacked on four runs to take the lead.
Once the Panthers took the lead in the sixth inning, they didn’t look back.
Georgia State scored eight consecutive runs with seven coming in the sixth inning.
Senior Cole Prestegard hit his fourth home run of the season in the ninth inning as the Trojans lost 12-5, their biggest loss in Sun Belt Conference play so far this season.
Game three of the series looked a lot like game two at the beginning.
The Panthers drove in five runs in the first inning to give themselves the early lead.
The Trojan defense, however, turned around quickly as Sadler Goodwin led the way on the mound.
Pitching in relief for Taylor Pridgen, Goodwin allowed just one run in his five innings pitched and notched a season-high of eight strikeouts in the game.
Goodwin also put in work at the batter’s box as he and Dalton Sinquefield put the Trojans on the board in the third inning with a pair of RBI singles.
The two scored another pair of RBI singles in the fourth inning in addition to Sinquefield’s second RBI of the game.
Goodwin scored his fourth RBI of the game in the eighth inning and sealed the deal for Troy as the Trojans won 10-5 to take the series.
The Trojans returned home on Tuesday night for a game against Samford University.
Troy gave up a first-inning home run to the Bulldogs but kept the game close with RBI from Sinquefield and errors by the Samford defense.
The floodgates opened in the third and fourth innings when Samford scored a combined nine runs.
The Trojans fought back with another RBI from Goodwin and Austin Garofalo, but the Bulldogs’ offense was too much, scoring three home runs in the game.
The Bulldogs took the mid-week battle 15-5, and Troy pitcher Max Newton took the loss for the game.
Next, the Trojans take on Sun Belt East rival Appalachian State in a three-game series at Riddle-Pace field before heading to Birmingham to take on Samford in a mid-week showdown.
