By LARRY WHITESports Correspondent
BAY MINETTE -- The Faulkner State baseball team returns to league play today as they host Wallace-Selma in the first of a three-game series at Stan James Field in Bay Minette.
Coach Wayne Larker's Chiefs will entertain Selma in a single game today beginning at 3 p.m. and then will play them again in a 1 p.m. doubleheader Saturday, also at James Field.
Now 9-17 overall and 3-6 in Southern Division play, Faulkner is coming off a Monday doubleheader home split against Southwest Mississippi.
Larker's squad was hitting on all cylinders in the first game as they romped past the Mississippi visitors 11-0 in five innings.
The Bears then came back to grab a wild nightcap by a 9-8 score. In the opener, FSCC starter Barrett Hernandez allowed just four hits in getting the shutout.
Faulkner State gave Hernandez plenty of offensive help, as the teambanged out 13 hits against Southwest's Zach White.
FSCC jumped out early with a big six-run first inning.
Tailor Holley walked and went to third on Tanner Williams' double to right center field. Chad Watson then got a pair of runs batted in with a single to center.
Watson then stole second and scored on Zach Cates' RBI double that just missed going out near the left field foul pole.
A base on balls to Tim Daw was followed by Blake Cooper's long single that the wind blew over the right fielder's head.
That loaded the bases for Chris Clements and he delivered a two-run single to left to make it 5-0.
Faulkner made it 7-0 with two more runs in the second inning. A Chase Brewer single, a Holley RBI single and a Williams RBI double produced two more runs.
Daw's one-out single in the fourth got the offense going again. Cooper followed with a double down the left field line to put runners at second and third.
Clements then had his second two-run single of the game, this time lacing a hard hit to left.
A Michael Tedesco walk, a wild pitch, another Holley single and a two-run single by Williams then ended the game in the fifth due to the 10-run rule.
FSCC scored twice in the first inning of the second game as Cates blasted a two-run homer.
But the visitors came right back and put up five runs in the second and four more in the third.
FSCC, with Cooper banging out a pair of doubles and a single, fought back and cut it to just one run 9-8 in the seventh but couldn't get the tying run across the plate.
"We chipped away each inning at them and needed one more in the seventh but their closer stumped us," Larker said after the game.
"Cooper had three hits for us and Cates had a big two-run home run. (Will) Buford gave up four or five in the early going and (Travis) Corley came in and gave up runs too. Taylor Roy came in and stopped them the rest of the way."
ACCC STATS
Tequisha Robinson