ELON, N.C. – After splitting Saturday's doubleheader with Towson, the Elon University baseball team entered the Sunday rubber match eyeing its first CAA series win. To help lead the charge, Elon turned to junior
Ryan Sprock, who is no stranger to making noise at the plate and on the mound.
Towson jumped out to a 1-0 lead in the first, but Elon responded immediately. With two outs in the bottom of the frame, Sprock jump-started the offense, hammering a slider left up in the zone for his sixth home run of the season.
Sprock said striking early was an emphasis after Saturday night's loss.
"We had to look to have a big bounce back day," Sprock said. "Tough one yesterday, so we really needed to get the juice going early. Luckily I got a good swing off in the first inning. Good old windy day at the Lathe helped me out a little bit, got us on the board."
Elon extended the lead to 4-1 in the bottom of the third, but Towson stuck around and tied it at 4-4 in the fourth. That would be the last of the damage allowed, as graduate student right-handed pitcher Declan Lavelle allowed just two more hits over his final three innings.
As the designated hitter on Sunday, Sprock watched Lavelle battle from the dugout, and said he was proud of his teammate.
"That's what you love to see, especially out of your Sunday guy," Sprock said. "You know you're fighting on Sunday, it's always a tooth and nail type of game. Declan getting seven out of that start after having a rough fourth inning with a three spot was massive. That dude is a dawg, a competitor through and through."
In the top of the eighth, junior right-handed pitcher Sam Nomura took over for Lavelle, pitching a 1-2-3 inning on only nine pitches.
"It's great to see a guy like Noms who obviously battled through a lot just coming into this year, a lot of injury throughout the fall," Sprock said of Nomura. "Being able to be out there where he knows he wants to be, be the competitor, it was awesome. That fires me up. I almost thought he was going to have the ball in the ninth because he was rolling."
All three of Nomura's outs came via the groundout to third baseman Justin Szestowicki. The first was a highlight moment, diving to his right and throwing across the diamond from the foul line.
"Szesto over there, that's huge," Sprock said. "We really needed a big defensive performance, that's one of the aspects of the game that we knew we had to clean up and that was big time. That definitely was one of, if not the biggest reason why we got the dub today."
With the game still tied and one out in the bottom of the eighth, Sprock once again wasted no time generating offense for his team. He swung on the first pitch he saw and lined it into left field for a single.
"I knew we just had to get a guy on base," Sprock said. "Wasn't really trying to do too much. Dont really need a hero in that spot, just got to keep passing the bats along the line."
Redshirt junior catcher Alex Duffey – the reigning CAA Player of the Week – followed him up with a double. Sprock advanced to third but was held up by associate head coach Robbie Huffstetler, leaving runners at second and third.
"When I got held up, I told Huff that was a good call because I was losing some steam running around the bases," Sprock laughed.
With two outs, Sprock looked to be aggressive on the basepath. A wild pitch got about five feet behind Towson's catcher and Sprock took off, beating the tag to score the go-ahead run.
"As soon as I saw that thing kick and get down, I knew I had to give us a shot and luckily enough we were able to sneak in there," Sprock said.
Elon added an extra run to take a 6-4 lead as graduate student Will Vergantino hit an RBI double to drive in Duffey from second base.
But Sprock wasn't done yet.
He returned in the top of the ninth, this time on the mound in relief of Nomura. Sprock closed out the game on 10 pitches to earn his first save of the season.
"The name of the game all weekend was just to attack," Sprock said. "I fell behind the first batter, knew I had to just fill it up and give our defense a chance."
After an all-around performance, Sprock said securing the series win was massive, for both him and the team. The Phoenix will be back at Latham Park on Tuesday, April 15 at 6 p.m. against UNCG before traveling to Monmouth for a three-game weekend series.
"It's no secret that we didn't start off the way we wanted to, so really getting the win this weekend was huge for us," Sprock said. "Hopefully we can continue this momentum and push it along, keep rolling going into the last few weekends of conference play."
'Rising Phoenix' is a student-led initiative to cover Elon Athletics. Through innovative content creation and storytelling, Elon University students will have the opportunity to highlight the moments, people and events that make an impact, leveraging the athletic department's various web and social media platforms for distribution. Follow Rising Phoenix on X (@EURisingPhoenix) and Instagram (@elonrisingphoenix). Interested in joining this initiative as a content creator (video, graphics, writing, storytelling, or more)? Contact Chase Strawser at cstrawser@elon.edu.
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