ROCKY MOUNT, NC — The NC Wesleyan College baseball team held off East Division foe Pfeiffer University 9-7 in a non-conference game in their home finale Tuesday afternoon. 

The Bishops handed the Falcons only their 7th loss of the season on Tuesday while Wesleyan improve to 22-12 on the season. They got out to a quick 4-0 lead after 2 innings before extending it to 8-3 after four before Pfeiffer rallied scoring 4 runs in the 6th. However, Wesleyan held them off for the win. 

Freshman Andrew Nichols and junior Brad Pennington drove in runs in the 2nd inning on RBI groundouts while senior catcher Christian Heisey also had an RBI single. After, PU cut it to 4-3 in the third, the Bishops came back with 4 runs in the 4th on back-to-back RBI singles from seniors Cedrick Kornegay and Trey Croom while freshman Jackson Murray and senior Logan Andrews then drove in one run apiece on Pfeiffer errors to make it 8-3.

Pfeiffer would take advantage of a Wesleyan error in the 6th to get within 8-7 off Bishop reliever J.D. Makauskas. However, senior reliever Mike Smith would then come on in the 6th to finish out the game throwing 3 and 2/3 innings to pick up his first save. He allowed just two hits and one run on a walk and 5 Ks while senior Brandon Wheat came in as a pinch-hitter in the 7th inning to stroke an RBI double to give the Bishops some cushion late in the game.

Junior starter Connor Stratton also threw 3 innings allowing just 3 hits and 3 runs with 3 strikeouts as well.

Croom led the Bishops with 3 hits while Murray also recorded a multi-hit game as he had a triple and a single. Croom is now batting .353 on the year with 33 RBIs and a team-high 35 runs scored.

Wesleyan will now prepare for their final conference series of the season this weekend when they face Covenant College down in North Georgia with a double header on Friday at Noon.