No. 25 Gaston College wins another Region 10 series

No. 25 Gaston College's baseball team solidified its positioning in the Region 10 Division I race with a weekend series victory over USC Sumter at Gastonia's Sims Legion Park.

The Rhinos (30-11-1, 13-8) trail first-place and No. 16 Florence-Darlington Tech (33-8, 18-3) in the standings but have created some separation from co-third place teams USC Sumter (22-18, 10-11) and USC Lancaster (17-21, 10-11).

Gaston College won the opener of Saturday's doubleheader 4-2 before dropping the nightcap by the same score, then took Sunday's series finale 6-1.

"Obviously we're battling to stay in that second spot," Rhinos coach Shohn Doty said. "Today I thought we came in ready to play offensively then we went a little dormant and you can't do that in college baseball.
"But credit to our guys. We've lost two series but we've also won the rest of our conference series."

Dominant pitching was the story for Gaston College during the weekend as Noah Zimmerman threw a five-hitter in Saturday's complete game victory in the opener, Conner Frail (8 innings, 2 earned runs, 6 strikeouts) was a hard luck loser in Saturday's nightcap and starter and winner Daniel Parris (7 innings, 5 strikeouts) and relievers Jake Young and Nick Diehl combined on a three-hitter in Sunday's finale.

"I think we are really finding ourselves on the mound," Doty said. "I've got confidence in all of the guys that we're running out there from the weekend guys to the mid-week guys."

Offensively, Jackson Toberman (5 hits, double, home run, 3 RBIs), Isaac Armstrong (4 hits, 2 double, 4 RBIs), Brandon Crabtree (3 hits, home run, 1 RBI) and Sam Dansky (3 hits, double) led the Gaston College.

Gaston College returns to action on Tuesday at 1 p.m. at Fayetteville Tech and travels to USC Union for a three-game series that starts with Saturday's 1 p.m. doubleheader and concludes with Sunday game at 1 p.m.