ELON – Despite five unanswered runs, Elon baseball's (17-24, 8-14 CAA) comeback fell short to UNCW (23-18, 11-8 CAA) Friday night. Elon dropped the weekend opener, 9-8.
Vince Fattore continues to round back into form. Fattore belted two home runs Friday night in his first career multi-home run game.
Jackson Alford added a solo home run of his own in the loss.
HOW IT HAPPENED
- UNCW got on the board first in the second inning with a solo home run.
- Elon countered in the bottom of the second with Fattore's first home run of the game.
- The Seahawks plated four runs in the third inning, all with two outs.
- The Phoenix chipped away at the deficit with Alford's solo shot in the bottom half of the inning.
- Three UNCW runs came across in the top of the fourth to expand their lead to six.
- A Nate Sterling double in the bottom of the inning scored Kevin Denty to make it an 8-3 game.
- Cole Hansen fired two straight zeros on the board before Elon brought home two of their own in the sixth. Fattore's two-run home run cut the deficit to three.
- Elon plated another in the seventh on a Fattore fielder's choice.
- In the eighth, Elon tied the score. A double from Brian DuRoff scored Jared Hall from first and cut the UNCW lead to one. Jose Mariano tied the score at eight with an RBI single off the bench.
- UNCW countered in the top of the ninth with a run of their own and closed out game on in the bottom of the inning.
QUICK HITS
- In Elon's last two games, Elon has trailed by five or more runs in both games and has come back to tie the score.
- Vince Fattore put together his first career multi-home run game Friday night. Fattore drove in a season-high four runs in the loss. Fattore is the first Phoenix with a multi-home run game since Ryan Sprock vs. Hofstra (05.03) last season.
- Brian DuRoff continues to swing a hot, April bat. On Tuesday, DuRoff collected his 17th double of the season, the most by an Elon player in the decade of the 2020s.
- Jackson Alford hit a solo home run on Friday night. Alford has homered in two of his last three CAA games.
- Lawson Wheeler and Jose Mariano each had a pinch-hit single.
- Cole Hansen added another solid relief appearance to his resume. In a long relief effort, Hansen went 3.1 innings out of the bullpen and allowed just one run on two hits.
UP NEXT
Elon returns to Latham Park tomorrow. First pitch between the Phoenix and UNCW is at 2 p.m.
