No. 2 Gaston College baseball sweeps DH with a pair of walkoff wins

What do you do for an encore after winning the longest game in Gaston College baseball history?

You follow that epic feat with a win in the second game to sweep a doubleheader Saturday at Sims Legion Park.

But the ending to game two followed the out-of-the-ordinary tone of the day. Gaston College pushed across a run on a passed ball with two outs in the bottom of the sixth inning to break a 5-5 tie, and that's where a game scheduled for seven innings came to a halt

At that point, the officials called the game due to unsafe playing conditions for the base umpire, who said he was unable to see clearly enough to continue, according to Rhinos coach Shohn Doty.

In the marathon opener, No. 2-ranked Gaston College made history by winning a 17-inning game that ran just short of five hours.

The Rhinos (18-2) outlasted Frontier Community College of Fairfield, Ill., 8-7 on Trent Murchison's one-out RBI single to left field, scoring Jackson Bernini from second base.

As to the unusual ending to game two, Doty said, "I hate to see anybody lose a game that way. But it was a historic day, and what I take out of that is our resiliency. It was a credit to our players with the way we fought."

The drama that closed game one set off a celebration that was a mix of joy and relief as the Gaston College dugout stormed onto the field and players swarmed Berini and Murchison, the game heroes.

Both teams had several chances to win before the game stretched into a 17-inning affair that became only the second double-digit baseball game in school history.

The other contest to go beyond nine innings was the season opener in 1971 when Gaston College defeated Mitchell College of Statesville 4-3 in 11 innings. In the second era of the sport at GC, which began in 2021, no game had gone longer than nine innings.

"It was a heck of a game, and both teams wanted to win," Doty said in the break between games. "Both teams had a lot of opportunities. In our case, we had chances to win in four straight innings. The takeaway is we have got to a better job with runners in scoring position."

To echo that sentiment, the Rhinos left 22 runners stranded in the game.

In the bottom of the 17th, Bernini led off with a bunt single, advanced on a walk to Caleb Estes, and raced home on Murchison's looping hit to short left field.

In the aftermath, perhaps there should have been a game ball for designated hitter Freddie Oliver, who hit a three-run home run in the fifth and delivered a solo blast to right in the bottom of the ninth to tie it at 5 and force extra innings.

As the contest wore into its historic length, the Bobcats took the bat out of Oliver's hands by issuing the left-handed hitter two consecutive intentional walks. He finished 2-for-5 with four RBIs.

The Rhinos punched out 16 hits for the game, with Murchison going 4-for-9 with the game-winning RBI and Bernini going 2-for-4 with an RBI coming off the bench.

Landon Carr, the last of seven Gaston College pitchers, picked up the win with 1 2/3 innings of relief. Although he yielded a two-out single that represented the go-ahead run in the top of the 17th, Carr (1-1) got the final out on a strikeout to quell the threat.

"I have to tip my hat to our bullpen, which was outstanding," Doty said. "We had a lot of guys who stepped in and played well. There was high-level pitching on both sides."

The Rhinos' staff combined for 15 strikeouts and only four walks. In contrast, Frontier Community College pitchers allowed 14 bases on balls.

In the finale of the twinbill, Murchison, a sophomore outfielder from Jacksonville, N.C., went 2-for-2 with a RBI in addition to scoring the winning run. Sean Sullivan delivered a big two-RBI double in a three-run fourth inning that tied the game after the Bobcats nicked GC starting pitcher Evan Vandenbosch for four runs in the third inning.

Vandenbosch bounced back in the fourth and fifth innings with shutout ball and recorded eight strikeouts before exiting. Austin Renn (1-0) faced two batters in the top of the sixth and got the win in relief.

The weekend series with the Bobcats ends Sunday at Sims Park with a doubleheader starting at noon.