Box Score
NORFOLK, Va. – Ryan Montgomery had three hits and three RBI, TiQuan Griffin hit a grand slam home run, and Ryan Davis threw seven shutout innings to help the Spartan baseball team win its second in a row and fifth in the last six games, an 18-2 victory over Virginia State on Tuesday afternoon at Marty L. Miller Field.
A day after matching the program record of 25 hits in a game, the Spartans (14-18) added 16 more against VSU (18-23). The Spartans have also scored 46 runs in their last two games, a record for any two-game stretch in the school's Division I era (since 1998). NSU also matched the school single-game record with nine stolen bases on Tuesday, four coming from senior outfielder John Lynch.
Lynch got NSU started in the second inning by singling and stealing second and third bases. Montgomery singled him home for the game's first run. Cameron Parsons added a sacrifice fly and James Taylor an RBI single in the three-run second. Lynch stole two more bases in the third and scored on a VSU error to give NSU a 4-0 lead.
After scoring thanks to another VSU miscue in the fourth, NSU put together a four-run rally in the sixth to make it 9-0. Parsons had an RBI double and Brandon Hairston a two-run single to highlight the inning.
The Spartans had most of their reserves in by the late innings, yet still put together a nine-run bottom of the eighth. Griffin, an eighth-inning defensive substitute, had the biggest hit of the frame, a grand slam homer to right field off VSU reliever Josh Cox. Parsons and Chris Joyce had run-scoring singles and Montgomery had a two-run double in the inning.
The Trojans scored a pair of runs in the top of the ninth on an RBI triple by Darryl Stringfield and an RBI single by Maso Cotton.
That was the only damage done against the NSU pitching staff. Davis, making just the second start of the year, allowed just one hit over a season-high seven innings of work. That was a two-out single by Stringfield in the first. Six of the first seven outs Davis recorded came by strikeout. He ended with a career-best nine strikeouts and walked just one batter. His younger brother, Kyle Davis, pitched a scoreless eighth before giving way to Jason Ellington in the ninth. Despite allowing two runs, Ellington struck out the side in the ninth, giving the NSU pitchers 13 strikeouts in the game.
Montgomery ended 3-for-4 with three RBI. Parsons was 2-for-4 with three RBI, while Hairston (two RBI) and Lynch (two runs scored) also went 2-for-4. Tyon Ore went 1-for-1 with three runs scored and a pair of stolen bases, and Griffin had four RBI on his one swing of the bat.
NSU is off until Saturday, when it hosts MEAC-leader Bethune-Cookman in a doubleheader which starts at 1 p.m.
