Gaston College completes weekend sweep in Region 10 play

Gaston College's 2022 Region 10 conference debut was as successful as it could be as the Rhinos completed a three-game road sweep of Wake Tech with an 8-5 victory on Sunday.

"It wasn't a thing of beauty but you when you win it doesn't really matter," said Gaston College head coach Shohn Doty, whose team is off to an 8-0 overall start and 3-0 in Region 10 Division II play. "We just grinded it out."

The Rhinos followed the same script all weekend with production in the top of the first and continued offense and solid pitching to stay ahead; Gaston College trailed only once all weekend at 2-1 early in Saturday's 11-2 Game Two victory.

In Sunday's win, J.D. Yakubinis led a patient offense with a pair two-out hits that produced four RBIs. Yakubinis hit a two-run first-inning home run that gave Gaston College an early 2-0 lead, then added a two-out single in the seventh to make it 8-4.

"I thought his approach this weekend was really, really good," Doty said of Yakubinis, who had five hits and eight RBIs in the weekend series sweep. "He had a huge hit to start the day and when they got within 6-4, J.D. put a two-out, two-strike at-bat together and got us back to 8-4 and gave us a chance to breathe a little bit."

Other standouts for an offense that had seven hits and drew 11 walks were Wade Kelly (two hits, two walks, four stolen bases), Konni Durschlag (two walks, one hit batter) and Ahmir Cournier (two walks).

On the mound, starter Tyler Parks went five innings with nine strikeouts for the victory and Durschlag struck out one in the ninth for the save. Relievers Gus Hughes (two innings) and Hunter Shew (one inning) also contributed to the victory.

The Rhinos are off until next weekend's matchup with defending South Atlantic district champion Patrick & Henry in Danville, Va. The Patriots, who finished fourth in the NJCAA World Series last summer, were ranked No. 10 in the preseason Division II poll.

"We'll have our work cut out for us next weekend when we head to Patrick & Henry," Doty said. "But we don't have a mid-week game this week so we've got a few days to get healthy, stronger and improve."