The Winthrop baseball team excelled over the last two weeks, winning six of its last seven games.
The Eagles began their hot streak on April 1, defeating Big South Conference foe Radford 7-6 in the first game of a three-game series in Rock Hill.
Winthrop went on to sweep the series, beating the Highlanders 10-2 on April 2, and earning an astounding 18-2 victory on April 3.
In the 18-2 blowout, fifth-year senior Dillon Morton hit two home runs — one of which was a grand slam.
“He’s got a lot of experience and I think that’s a huge key. When you have experience, they’re going to come up and they’re going to get big hits for you, because he’s been in that situation,” said head coach Tom Riginos. “He had a really, really good weekend.”
The Eagles returned to the field last Wednesday, hosting UNC Charlotte in a non-conference matchup. Despite having numerous players out with illness, Winthrop pounded out a 9-6 win over the 49ers.
“We had 11 position players out,” Riginos said. “I only had two guys on the bench today, and that’s toughness. We had guys [on the field] that never played, guys that haven’t played in two or three weeks.
“Evan Ames, Ethan Fewell, Chris Ewing — those three guys had not played a lot. All three got huge hits for us today.”
The win against UNC Charlotte extended Winthrop’s win streak to four games, which was a breath of fresh air for the Eagles following losses to Clemson and Wofford the week before.
“I told the guys on Sunday that I could see it coming,” Riginos said on Wednesday after defeating UNC Charlotte.
“We have had a tough non-conference schedule. I did schedule tough this year, [and we’ve] struggled a little bit, but you can tell that every at-bat is getting better, and I think the biggest thing is our pitching. Our pitching is really starting to come around the last two weeks.”
Better pitching proved to be true Friday as Winthrop held Charleston Southern to just three runs while the Eagles scored nine, winning the first game of the latest three-game series in Rock Hill.
On Saturday, Winthrop recorded nine runs again, which was enough to top the Buccaneers (who scored seven runs) for a second day in a row.
Having won six games in a row, the Eagles dropped game three against Charleston Southern in a ten-inning, 14-11 offensive shootout, ending Winthrop’s win streak.
Regardless of the loss, the six-game win streak doubled the team’s season win total, as the Eagles were 6-18 entering the series versus Radford but emerged from the Charleston Southern series owning a 12-19 record.
Winthrop’s 6-3 record in conference games is good enough for third place in the Big South right now, just behind Campbell (8-1) and Longwood (7-2).
Winthrop travels to Gardner-Webb for a three-game series this weekend before returning home to host non-conference opponents Davidson (April 19 at 6 p.m.) and South Carolina (April 20 at 6 p.m.).
