March 15, 2008

Rome, Ga. - The Shorter College baseball took a huge conference win over the Reinhardt Eagles on Friday, taking the game 15-11. The win improves Shorter to 10-15 overall and 3-7 in the SSAC heading into Sunday's doubleheader at 1 p.m. The twinbill was originally slated to take place today, but was moved due to the threat of bad weather.

The Hawks entered the bottom half of the fifth inning clinging to a 6-5 advantage when they put together one of their most productive at-bats of the season.

Supplying the fireworks were Brandon Ponder and Shannon Houston, who accounted for seven of the eight runs.

Ponder kicked the door open first when he delivered a bases-loaded shot into the left-centerfield gap that resulted in a three-run triple.

Shorter, however, was far from through as the Hawks loaded the bases again, setting the stage for Houston. The freshman from Armuchee High responded, hitting a 3-2 pitch over the left field fence for a grand slam.

Despite staring at a 14-5 deficit, Reinhardt slowly began to chip away at the Hawks' lead, putting up a pair of runs in the sixth, another in the seventh and three more in the top of the ninth before Shorter sealed the win.

Ponder led Shorter's 14-hit attack with three hits and drove in four runs, Dustan Cantrell had two hits and two RBI, Jarrod Lewis and Jake Broome had two hits each, and Ryan Murphy and Mark Charrette drove in three and two runs, respectively.

Jarrod Willis and Greg Ihlenburg had four hits and two RBI each for Reinhardt (14-13, 3-7), which touched Shorter for 18 hits.

Hawks pitcher JP Griffin, who entered the game in the top of the fifth inning, recorded the win to improve to 3-1.