Furman’s 8-6 win spoils Citadel attempt at sweep

The Citadel secured a berth in the Southern Conference baseball tournament this weekend, but could not finish off a three-game sweep of Furman today.

The Paladins scored two runs in the 12th inning, on RBI singles from Taylor Johnson and Alex Abrams, for an 8-6 win over the Bulldogs today at Riley Park.

The Citadel (24-28, 13-14) will wind up the regular season with a three-game series at Elon starting Wednesday, then will head to the SoCon tournament May 23-27 in Greenville. Furman (22-29, 10-17) is trying to squeeze into the eighth and final spot in the SoCon tournament, and plays at Clemson on Tuesday before hosting Davidson to end the regular season.

Trailing 3-0 after the first inning, the Bulldogs scored one run in the sixth and four in the seventh to take a 5-4 lead. Nick Orvin and Justin Mackert delivered RBI singles before Bo Thompson’s slicing two-run double to right gave the Bulldogs the lead.

But Furman came back with two runs in the ninth. After an infield single and a double down the left-field line, a sacrifice fly by Jake Jones tied the game at 5-5. Jarrod Rickman put the Paladins up by 6-5 with an RBI double to left.

The Bulldogs tied it up in the bottom of the ninth. Orvin singled, went to second on a bad pickoff throw and to third on a wild pitch, scoring on Mackert’s double-play grounder to force extra innings.