SAINT LEO, Fla. – Saint Leo (15-6) won its fifth straight on Monday afternoon, topping Kentucky Wesleyan (5-5) by a final score of 9-2. The Lions strung together five consecutive scoring innings in the middle of the contest to put away the Panthers.
Chris Williams started the game on the hill for the Lions and tossed seven complete innings to earn his second win for the Green and Gold. Williams allowed just one earned run and struck out five while surrendering just one walk.
Taed Moses led the Lions' offensive effort—tallying three hits including a towering solo homerun over the centerfield wall in the bottom of the fourth. Moses came up just a double short of the cycle. Collecting two hits on the afternoon was Ryan Brnovich, Frank Rawdow and Chris Newcomb. Rawdow also plated three runs for the Lions.
The Lions got their offense going in the bottom of the second when Moses led off the inning with a triple and eventually came across home on a wild pitch from the Panthers' starter Alex Simpson.
An inning later Brnovich ripped the Lions' second triple of the game to get the inning going and later was brought home on a double from Rawdow. The next inning, Moses torched a mammoth homerun to centerfield to extend the Lions' lead to 4-0.
Kentucky Wesleyan pushed a run across the board in the top of the fifth, but the Lions came right back and responded with two more in the bottom half of the inning when Rawdow doubled to right field and came all the way home after a throwing error on the Panthers. Newcomb followed up with a single and proceeded to steal second and third to set up Moses' RBI single.
After the Panthers scored another run in the top of the sixth the Lions put up a three-spot in the bottom of the inning. The inning was started with a walk from Perez and a base hit from Brnovich. After a walk from Rawdow, Twitty sent a ball into the right-center gap for a double to bring home Perez and Brnovich. With the hit, Twitty extended his hit streak to 17 games. The next play Newcomb singled to the shortstop to bring home Rawdow to make the lead 9-2.
Relieving Williams on the mound in the eighth was Matthew Hewitt who tossed an inning of work and allowed just one hit. Adam Albers took the ball in the ninth and got three up, three down to finish the game out.
The Saint Leo baseball team heads back into conference play this weekend with a series at Tampa. The first pitch for Friday's game is set for 6:00 p.m.
