Box Score
NORFOLK, Va. — Host Norfolk State jumped out to an early 6-0 lead and held for an 8-4 victory over Delaware State on Sunday afternoon at Marty L. Miller Field, taking the rubber game of the teams' three-game weekend series.
The win gives NSU head coach Claudell Clark his 100th career victory leading the Spartans.
Chris Joyce (Chesapeake, Va.) was one of five Spartans with at least two hits and one of two with two RBI. He finished 2-for-4 with a double for NSU (13-17, 7-8 MEAC).
Jason Barker (Chesapeake, Va.) earned his second pitching victory of the week and team-leading fourth of the year. Barker (4-3) allowed three runs, two earned, over seven innings. He gave up six hits, walked two and fanned three.
NSU pounced on DSU starter Justin Bittner (5-2) with three runs in the bottom of the first inning. John Lynch (Newport News, Va.) led off with a triple off the left-field wall. After Bittner hit Drew Suttmiller (Chesapeake, Va.) and walked Brandon Hairston (North Garden, Va.) to load the bases, Jermaine Berry (Suffolk, Va.) forced in Lynch with a fielder's choice grounder. Bittner then hit Anselmo Cantu (Virginia Beach, Va.) with a pitch to load the bases again. Joyce followed with a two-run single to give the Spartans a 3-0 lead.
Hairston started a two-out rally with an opposite-field single in the second. He scored from first on a long single to right-center by Berry. In the bottom of the third, TiQuan Griffin (Florence, S.C.) drove in a run with a single and then stole home on a double steal with Suttmiller, putting the Spartans ahead 6-0.
DSU finally got to Barker in the fourth on Ross Babineaux's two-out, two-run single. That scored Mike Rizzuto, who walked, and Jose Sanchez, who was hit by a pitch.
But NSU got those runs back in the bottom of the fifth on Suttmiller's RBI single and Hairston's run-scoring double down the third-base line.
The Hornets scratched out a run in the seventh as Brandon Crist (2-for-3) singled and came around to score on a throwing error by Barker. In the ninth, Jose Sanchez cut NSU's lead to 8-4 with an RBI infield single, but Ryan Shook (Virginia Beach, Va.) got Justin Bittner to ground into a 4-6-3 double play to end it.
Hairston, Cantu, Jerrod Farley (Chester, Va.) and Griffin joined Joyce with two hits each. Berry was 1-for-3 with two RBI, and Farley stole two bases. Every NSU starter had at least one hit, and eight of the nine scored at least one run.
Crist, Wynton Weather and Jared Lineweaver had two hits apiece for DSU. Bittner took the loss on the mound after allowing eight hits and six runs, five earned, in three innings.
NSU returns to action Wednesday at VMI. First pitch is slated for 5 p.m.
