LaGANGE — In a doubleheader with LaGrange College, the Piedmont College baseball team dropped the series opener 14-1 but bounced back to pick up a 3-1 victory in game two. The Lions were only able to manage three hits against the Panthers in the opener but doubled that performance in the second contest.
The Lions got on the board early in the first contest with a 1-0 lead after the top of the first as Will Skidmore scored on a Griffin Olson single, but the Panthers answered with a pair of runs in the bottom of the frame to take a 2-1 lead.
The Panthers saw a grand slam open up the game in the second inning as they led 6-1 and a six-run sixth inning continued the Panthers' offensive attack. LaGrange had a total of 18 hits in the game but in game two, the Panthers had 10 hits but were unable to string them together to produce runs.
Piedmont scored first in game two as Michael Barnes singled to score Evan Gresham and Olson taking a 2-0 lead, and LaGrange answered with a single run in the bottom of the frame. In the eighth inning, Olson hit a sacrifice fly to score Skidmore finalizing the 3-1 score.
Freshman Ben McCurley earned his second victory of the season giving up just a single run in five innings while striking out six batters. Josh Thomas earned his seventh save of the season, topping his total from the 2015 season just 14 games into 2016.
Piedmont will take on LaGrange Monday afternoon at 3 p.m. in the series finale in LaGrange.
