NORFOLK, Va. – Tommy Woods homered and drove in two runs, and Matt Stanley recorded his first win of the year to help Norfolk State win game two of Saturday's doubleheader with Maryland Eastern Shore, 5-2, to earn a split of the two games.
The Hawks won game one, 7-5.
In the nightcap, Woods hit a solo homer in the bottom of the second to give NSU (12-26, 9-14) a lead it would not relinquish. The Spartans kept the hits coming in the fourth, scoring three more times thanks to four hits. Tanner Brandon led off with a double and scored when Steven Shaffer followed with a double of his own. Phillip Boykin added an RBI single and Brandon Cleveland drove in Woods with a sacrifice fly for a 4-0 Spartan lead.
Dionte Brown singled, stole second and later scored on an infield single by Shaffer for the Spartans' last run in the sixth.
UMES (13-27, 12-11) scored twice in the sixth on the strength of two hits and two walks to cut its deficit to 5-2. The Hawks made things interesting in the seventh, loading the bases on two walks and an NSU error. But Spartan reliever Dylan Flint got Alex McCoy to line out to right field to end the game.
That made a winner out of Stanley, who had his best start of the season. Stanley pitched 5.1 innings and allowed just three hits and two runs while striking out a career-high eight batters. Flint earned the save, his second of the year, with 1.2 innings of work out of the bullpen. He fanned two batters.
Woods had a season-high three hits, falling just a triple shy of the cycle, in game two. Shaffer and Brown added two hits each.
In game one, the Hawks used a four-run fourth and single tallies in the sixth and seventh to hold off the Spartans. NSU held a 3-1 lead after three thanks to an RBI single by Brown and a two-run single by Tanner Brandon in the bottom of the third.
But UMES rallied. Kyle Cincinnati hit an RBI single and Jason Brown struck the big blow, a three-run triple that put the Hawks in front, 5-3 in the fourth.
Raphy Rodriguez doubled and scored on an RBI single by Shaffer in the fifth, but UMES scored the next two runs. Cincinnati scored on an NSU error in the sixth and Derrick Mayes was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded in the seventh to push the Hawk lead to 7-4.
Rodriguez doubled and scored on a Jacob Council sacrifice fly in the seventh, but Hawk reliever Blake Rebstock closed the Spartans out from there to give UMES the win.
Rodriguez was 3-for-4 with three runs scored in game one and had four hits on the day. Brandon was 2-for-3 with two RBIs in the opener and collected three hits on the afternoon. Shaffer knocked in three runs over the course of the doubleheader.
Zac Capps (1-5) took the loss in the opener, allowing four earned runs (six total) in six innings. He struck out seven batters, his third start with at least that many this season.
The teams conclude their series at noon on Sunday.
