FARMVILLE, Va. – Lancer baseball secured a mid-week win, 8-6, against William & Mary in a back-and-forth battle on Tuesday night.

Lucas Johnson paced the Longwood (15-6) offense with a solo homer and a double, while the duo of Wyatt Bunch and JR Fordham provided three innings of effective relief to hold off William & Mary (7-12) and seal the win.

                             R             H            E

WMU                    6             8             2

LWU                     8             9             0

HOW IT HAPPENED:

William & Mary kicked things off early with a run from Chase Ecker off a wild pitch to take the lead in the first.

Longwood wasted no time responding with an RBI double from Lucas Johnson and another from Ben Pulliam right after to give Longwood the 2-1 lead.

The Tribe found their chance to tie it with a solo homer from Matthew Kosuda in the second.

The Lancers quickly responded with an RBI single from Jae'dan Carter that put Longwood up 3-2 in the second.

Johnson kept things going in the third with a solo homer to left field, and a pair of RBI doubles from Mac Tufts and Jack McMullan pushed the Lancer lead to 6-2.

William & Mary struck back in the fourth with a homer to left field from Trey Christman to shorten the lead and an RBI double from Louie Bartletti to bring the Tribe within 6-4.

The Tribe tied things up in the sixth with an RBI groundout from Kosuda, and an RBI double from Sam Kaczmarek tied the game 6-6.

A wild pitch brought Brice Abbott home in the seventh, and a stolen base from Mac Tufts put Longwood up 8-6.

Wyatt Bunch (3-0) earned the win after pitching 1.2 relief innings with only one hit allowed, and he faced the minimum in the seventh.

JR Fordham (4) earned the save after pitching the last 1.1 innings with only one hit allowed and one strikeout.

Hank Lippman (1-2) got the loss after giving up the lead in the seventh with two hits and two earned runs in 2.0 innings.

WHAT THEY SAID:

 "I thought we did a really good job early, carrying and holding momentum, and we were kind of battling through that", said Head Coach Ray Noe. "We score a run here or there, and then they respond. We weren't able to do what we've been doing all year, which is to get some zeros on the mound and hold momentum. I was happy with the way that we continued to battle through the game and finally put up that two-spot in the seventh, and [Wyatt] Bunch and [JR] Fordham took us the rest of the way."
 
"We have so much confidence in our group, I think they relish these closer games", said Noe about the team in tight contests. "It's been these four or five two-run ball games, and they just play. It doesn't really matter the score or the time or the inning, and they're pretty confident in what they do, so we just try to stay the course, and hopefully we'll be on the winning side more times than not."

UP NEXT:

The Lancers are back at Buddy Bolding Stadium for a three-game series against USC Upstate with game one on Mar 20 starting at 6 p.m. All three games will be broadcast on ESPN+.

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