No. 2 Radford Downs No. 7 Charleston Southern, Avoids Elimination
It was
Andrew Nardi's night as he threw a complete game for the first time in his career and tallied a season-high eight strikeouts in an 8-1 victory over Charleston Southern on Thursday night at Segra Stadium.
The starting pitcher allowed one hit on the very first pitch of the game but battled back to retire 25 of the next 26 batters and pitched 8.1 straight innings of no-hit baseball. He was one strikeout shy of tying a career-high when he picked up nine against Elon on February 21, 2017.
In the meantime, the Highlander bats backed him up. It took an inning, but Radford took a 2-0 lead in the second thanks to a two-run single from
Colby Higgerson. The run count escalated in the third inning when
J.D. Mundy was about five feet from another grand slam, but the CSU left fielder caught it on the warning track. However, the ball was deep enough to allow
Kyle Butler to score from third.
The missed home run didn't matter because one batter later
Straton Podaras cleared the bases with a two-out single up the middle. The catcher's second hit of the night extended Radford's lead to 5-0.
Radford later took advantage of two Buccaneer errors in the sixth inning and plated three more runs, which made it an 8-0 ballgame. Charleston Southern made three errors in the game and all of them were costly as only three of the runs scored were earned.
Charleston Southern picked up a consolation run in the ninth inning, but it didn't faze Nardi. The senior from Morganville, N.J., ended the night with a swinging strikeout. He finished Thursday's game with 100 pitches thrown and 72 of them were strikes.
All Radford's hits came from just four players as Podaras, Higgerson, Mundy and
Andrew Szamski tallied two. Podaras, Higgerson and Mundy each had two RBIs, while Szamski added one. Each of Radford's eight hits were singles.
Radford made one error on Thursday night in the fifth inning. It was the first error Radford's had in the last five games. The last error made prior to Thursday's was on May 14 against Wake Forest. Following that error, the Highlander defense didn't make an error for 43 straight innings.
Radford's road to the championship continues on Friday at 4 p.m., when it takes on No. 6 High Point. If the Highlanders win, they'll face the loser of No. 1 Campbell and No. 3 Winthrop immediately after the conclusion of their first game.