Baseball season comes to an end as Wolves fall to Bulldogs

HARTSVILLE, S.C. – The Newberry College baseball team’s 2024 campaign came to an end on Sunday evening as they fell to the three seeded Bulldogs of Wingate University in the South Atlantic Conference tournament championship by a 13-7 score followed by a 7-6 final score, finishing their season at 26-28.

The Wolves defeated Carson-Newman by the score of 8-1 on Saturday morning and Wingate by the score of 18-6 on Friday night behind Jacob Lebron’s 200th hit en route to Sunday’s championship game for Bracket One. The senior right fielder became just the tenth player in program history to reach that milestone.

In Sunday’s game, senior first baseman Henry Gibson shined at the plate going 6-8 with an RBI in both games. In game two, the Wolves got great outings out of seniors Trevor Linaman and Wyatt Carey.

In game one, the Wolves and Bulldogs would exchange runs in the first inning of game one with the Wolves run coming from a rbi infield single from Jacob LeBron.

The Bulldogs would score eight unanswered runs to pull away to a 9-1 lead. The Wolves would battle to bring it within six on a successful double steal from LeBron and Donovan Ford and a Gibson would drive in a run with a single down the left field line.

The Wolves ran late with two RBIs from Jomar Lugo, along with Bryson Nuckols and Kade Faircloth to bring the Bulldog lead to five. But the late surge wasn’t enough as the Bulldogs would win 13-7.

In the second game, the Wolves and Bulldogs would have four ties and three lead changes as the Bulldogs would get a run in the bottom of the eighth to take a 7-6 victory.

The Wolves would take the 2-0 lead, as two-runs would score on a fielder’s choice from Luke Compton.

After falling behind 3-2 the Wolves would answer with two runs in the top of the fourth with a rbi groundout from Nuckols and a successful suicide squeeze bunt from Chandler Mims to take a 4-3 lead. Linaman would go three innings without giving up a hit to the Bulldogs.

The Bulldogs would regain a 6-4 lead in the seventh. Ford would tie the game up in the top of the eighth with a double to right center field to knot the game up at six. But the bulldogs would get the last run in the bottom of the eighth and then would close the game winning 7-6.