SALEM, Va. – Roanoke College handed Bridgewater its first conference loss of the season in the first game of Saturday's baseball doubleheader, but the Eagles salvaged a split behind Robert Gallet's stellar pitching performance in the second game.
Roanoke took an 11-6 win in the opener, but the Eagles bounced back with a 12-1 victory behind Gallet's complete-game two-hitter.
In the first game, Bridgewater committed eight errors in the contest, leading to seven unearned runs.
The Maroons took the lead with a pair of unearned runs in the second, but the Eagles tied the game with two runs in the top of the third. A single by Christian Armstrong and a double by Nick Fulk put runners at second and third. Jonathan Mason drove in both runs with a single to center to tie the score.
The Maroons regained the lead with another unearned run in the third and broke the game open with five runs in the fifth. Five hits combined with two more Eagles errors led to the big inning for the Maroons.
Roanoke pushed its lead to 9-2 with another unearned run in the sixth.
The Eagles tried to mount a rally in the eight as they scored four runs to trim the lead to three. Sanderson and Mason led off the inning with back-to-back doubles, making the score 9-3. After Andrew Hacker reached on an error, Mason scored on a groundout by Derrik Walling, trimming the deficit to 9-4. Ryan Smith singled home a run and Brendan Howell chased home a run with a double, pulling the Eagles to within 9-6.
Roanoke added some insurance runs in the bottom of the eighth as another Bridgewater error led to two more unearned runs and a final score of 11-6.
Gallet was dominant in the second game as he struck out 11 and walked just one batter. He made his lone mistake in the fifth when he gave up a two-out solo homer to Jacob Clifton for Roanoke's only run.
The Eagles scored in the first on Walling's RBI-single and then added two more runs in the top of the third. Sanderson hit a solo homer to make it 2-0 and Walling drove in another run with a single for a 3-0 Eagles lead.
Starting in the fifth, the Eagles scored in every inning the rest of the way.
In the fifth, Nick Fulk singled, stole second, moved to third on a passed ball and scored on a groundout by Mason to make the score 4-0. After Clifton's homer in the bottom of the fifth, the Eagles answered with three runs in the top of the sixth. Fulk delivered the big hit in the sixth with a two-run single, making the score 7-1.
The Eagles added single runs in the seventh and eighth to increase the lead to 9-1. Mason scored on a passed ball in the seventh and Darren Yoder singled home a run in the eighth.
Bridgewater completed its scoring with three runs in the ninth to close out the 12-1 victory.
With the split, the Eagles are now 16-1 in the ODAC and 24-9 overall. Roanoke is 7-10 in the ODAC, 15-19 overall.