Joe Burgarino, Sports Information Graduate Assistant

BURLINGTON, NC- The Pfeiffer baseball team's (23-31) impressive run came to end on Sunday evening, as the Falcons fell in the championship game to Mount Olive (29-19) 10-5. This was the second year in a row that Pfeiffer played in the Conference Carolinas Championship. Derek Perry put together a solid performance going 3-for-5 from the plate and scoring two runs for the Falcons.

Pfeiffer struck first in the bottom of the first inning. Perry opened the inning up with a single, and came around to score on a fielding error by the shortstop. Mount Olive answered in the top of the third inning scoring four times with two outs. The Trojans scored two more runs in the fourth and one more in the fifth extending their lead to 7-1.

Mount Olive looked to put the game out of reach in the sixth inning, loading the bases with nobody out. Chase Saunders came into pitch and worked his way out of the jam not allowing a run. Saunders was able to get the first batter he faced to ground out, struck out the next batter and got the final batter of inning to line-out to the second baseman.

Perry opened up the sixth inning singling up the middle, then stealing second base and later scoring on a RBI single to right field by Zach Scudder. In the bottom of the seventh inning Ryne Stanley connected on his second home run of the tournament cutting the lead to 7-3.

The Falcons scored two more runs in the eighth inning, Tanner Mathis singled up the middle, coming around to score when the UMO third baseman made a throwing error. Cody McKenzie singled to center field scoring Anthony Allende from third making the score 8-5 in favor of Mount Olive.

The Trojans pushed across two insurance runs in the top of the ninth inning. Perry led off the final inning by hitting an infield single. UMO ended the threat by getting a strikeout and then double play to win the Conference Carolinas Tournament championship.

The Falcons had three players named to the All-Tournament team. Senior pitcher Hunter Jobe had a fantastic tournament making three appearances, pitching nine innings recording a win and a save in the tournament. McKenzie recorded seven hits in the tournament driving in five runs, including a 3-run blast in the win over Barton. Mathis was the third part of the All-tournament team, he went 10-for-21 from the plate driving in five runs and scoring four times.

This concludes the Falcons baseball season. Pfeiffer made an excellent run in the Conference Tournament as the number six seed. Winning three games including knocking off the number one seed Erskine.