Gaston College splits a doubleheader with the No. 2 baseball team in the country

Facing the nation's No. 2-ranked team created extra excitement around Gastonia's Sims Legion Park Sunday afternoon for the entire Gaston College baseball community.

And after suffering a 4-1 loss in a hard-fought opener, the Rhinos rallied to earn a series split with Walters State, Tennessee, with a 4-2 win in the nightcap.

"I was just really, really proud of how we responded in the second game," Gaston College coach Shohn Doty said. "I thought we played well enough to win in the first game but we just didn't get any timely hits."

Walters State entered with impressive credentials of a No. 2 preseason national ranking in the National Junior College Athletic Association Division I poll, a previous national title, 11 previous World Series appearances (including four straight) and 14 previous Region 7 championships.

Gaston College, in its second year, had finished 41-9 last season to a Region 10 regular season and national rankings as high as No. 2 as NJCAA Division II school. This season, the Rhinos have moved up to Division I and received votes in the preseason NJCAA Division I poll.

Both teams entered the doubleheader with unbeaten records and top pitchers.

And each played confirmed those records and expectations as Walters State's opening game starter Landon Crumbley threw 4 2-3 innings of no-hit baseball to get the win and Gaston College's second game starter Nolan Straniero threw five scoreless innings for the victory. The visiting Senators used four other pitchers and the Rhinos seven with each showing off their skills.

In the opener, Walters State broke open a scoreless tie with two runs in the fifth and seventh innings to provide its four runs. The Senators used three hits, a walk and a wild pitch to score twice in the fifth inning.

After Gaston College's Trey Truitt's line drive home run to right field stopped Crumbley's no-hit bid, the Senators got two insurance runs in the seventh on four hits, one walk and a wild pitch to account for the final score.

In the nightcap, Straniero yielded three hits and three walks with one baserunner getting erased when catcher J.D. Yakubinis threw out a potential base stealer and another runner was erased when shortstop Enrique Wood caught a fly ball in shallow centerfield with the bases loaded and one out in the fourth before throwing to Yakubinis at home plate for an inning-ending double play.

"There was some high level play today out there from both teams," Doty said.

The double play swung momentum Gaston College's way, especially after Preston Hall's two-run single gave the Rhinos their first lead of the day in the bottom of the fourth.

"We'd been waiting on that all day," Doty said. "Hall had made some good swings, had missed some balls and popped some balls up. He finally gets it on the barrel (on the two-run single) and helped us open it up there.
"Then we got an opportunity in the fifth and sixth to get one run apiece for some breathing room, which we ended up needing."

The Rhinos scored in the fifth on a Walters State throwing error and another run in the sixth on Andrew Muraco's bases-loaded RBI walk.

Walters State ended Gaston College's shutout bid in the sixth with two unearned runs before reliever Sawyer Sutton ended the game with a strikeout to lead Senators' baserunners on second and third.

Rhinos reliever Derek Vartanian had struck out the side in the sixth after Straniero was relieved after five innings.

"After we scored, I thought Derek's inning was the biggest of the game," Doty said. "We get a lead and wanted a big stop and it was emphatic. I think it kind of carried over for us."

Yakubinis had three hits and Truitt, Konni Durschlag and Miller St. John had two apiece for the Rhinos' 11-hit offense on Sunday; Gaston College had two hits in the opener and nine in the nightcap.

Gaston College next travels to Lenoir on Wednesday to play Caldwell Tech at Walker Stadium at 3 p.m. The Cobras went 49-9 last season, won Region 10's Division III title and were ranked No. 5 in the NJCAA Division III preseason poll.