Cougars walk to victory over Citadel, 11-7

The College of Charleston literally walked their way past The Citadel on Wednesday night.

Eight Citadel pitchers combined to walk a season-high 12 Cougars and the College Charleston designated hitter Ben Boykin collected three hits and drove in two runs to lead the Cougars past the Bulldogs, 11-7, at Patriots Point.

It was a sloppy games on many levels for both clubs. The two rivals combined to use 13 pitchers, that combined to give up 18 runs, 18 hits, 18 walks and throw five wild pitches.

Coming off a 9-5 loss No. 5 South Carolina on Tuesday night, Citadel head coach Fred Jordan was forced to go deep into his pitching staff and bullpen.

The results were not pretty.

Of the eight pitchers the Bulldogs trotted out to the mound, not one lasted more than two innings.

Six of the eight issued at least one walk, and seven gave up at least one hit.

“Obviously, we’ve been pitching the right ones in a lot of our previous game,” Jordan said. “We went with some of our younger guys, some different guys, and they didn’t throw strikes. We were lucky we didn’t get beat by two touchdowns. You walk 12 in a game and only lose by four runs, we should call it a moral victory. Congratulations to the Cougars because they didn’t swing and took the pitches.”

Jordan said he doesn’t think there were no lingering effects from Tuesday night’s loss to the nationally-ranked Gamecocks.

“There wasn’t any hangover from the South Carolina game,” Jordan said. “We scored seven runs and we usually don’t score seven runs. Seven runs should be enough. We’re a pitching program and we need to get better.”

Despite the victory, Charleston coach Monte Lee wasn’t exactly thrilled with the Cougars performance. He’ll take the win over his cross-town rival, but wasn’t pleased with much else.

“We took advantage of some free passes,” Lee said. “If there’s a positive to take out of tonight, it’s that we took advantage of some free passes. The Citadel had a hard time throwing strikes tonight. They walked a lot of guys and we took advantage of it because we got 11 runs off of nine runs.”

Boykin’s three hits, including a team-leading eighth double, highlighted the night at the plate for the Cougars. Boykin, who is hitting a team-leading .333, added two singles.

“I saw the ball pretty well tonight,” Boykin said. “I was trying to make good contact and get a pitch to drive somewhere.”

Trailing 4-1 going into the fourth inning, the Bulldogs grabbed a 6-4 lead with Brett Bullard’s RBI single highlighting the inning for the Bulldogs.

The Cougars answered with three runs of their own in the bottom of the fourth and then broke the game open with four more runs in the sixth to take an 11-6 advantage.

The Bulldogs got their final run on Bo Thompson’s Southern Conference leading 8th home run in the 7th inning.