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Sunday, July 27, 2025

BASE: Lancers win opening home series

Longwood Baseball

After opening the season with a tough 0-3 series loss at East Carolina, the Longwood baseball team bounced back with a 2-1 series victory over the Wagner College Seahawks to open up their home schedule starting last Friday. Longwood took the first two games 6-0 and 6-3 before falling 6-4 in the Sunday finale.

The Wagner series opened the home slate due to rain postponing the scheduled game on Tuesday, Feb. 22 against the Richmond Spiders.

The Lancers (2-4) were led by junior third baseman Alex Lewis at the plate, as he finished with four hits, including a two-run home run in the first inning on Saturday.

“When I’m in the box, I’m just trying to be as relaxed as I can,” said Lewis. “This year I’m really trying to focus on just having fun and playing baseball; it’s the reason I started playing it when I was young. I loved playing and it was fun, so this year I just try to take all the pressure off myself and just try to have fun.”

Lewis has gotten off to a hot start for the Lancers with a .300 batting average, while leading the team in runs batted in (5), runs scored (5), total bases (11), slugging percentage (.550) and hits (6).

Friday night Longwood pitchers dominated the Wagner offense as Travis Burnette and Cody Wager combined for the 6-0 shutout win. Burnette went five innings and finished with five hits allowed but didn’t walk a single batter and struck out seven.

Wager came in and threw the last four innings allowing only two hits, striking out three while retiring the final nine batters he faced to preserve the shutout and secure the first win of 2016. Wager ended up earning the win because the Lancers were unable to scratch across any runs before Burnette had exited the game.

Junior outfielder Drew Kitson’s two-run single got things going for the Lancer offense in the sixth, part of a three-run inning that broke a scoreless tie. Longwood was able to tack on one more run in the seventh and two in the eighth with RBI hits from Lewis,  sophomore Hayes Nelson and sophomore Sammy Miller.

On Saturday, Lewis and Brandon Harvell each had two-run base hits to lead the Lancer offense. Lewis’ two-run home run followed a solo shot from senior infielder Connar Bastaich to give Longwood the 3-1 lead after one inning.

The Seahawks were able to rally and tie the game in the sixth before Harvell’s two-run double put Longwood in front to stay.

“The second weekend, we’re just used to getting back into the swing of things,” said Lewis. “I think this weekend we put better swings on the ball and had a better approach at the plate.”

Junior relief pitcher Devin Gould came in and shut the door over the final three innings with five strikeouts and even got an at-bat after a double-switch took the designated hitter out of the lineup.

On Sunday, the Seahawks were able to salvage a game in the series after timely hitting and three Lancer errors.

“We’ve just got to do a better job of putting away a team after taking a Friday and Saturday game, and we didn’t do it today,” said head coach Ryan Mau.

Longwood was able to put up two runs in the first inning, but the Seahawks were able to get to starting pitcher Zach Potojecki for three in the second and never surrendered the lead on their way to a 6-4 victory.

“I thought we did a great job of coming out early putting up two runs and then unfortunately on back-to-back days we didn’t get the starting pitching I thought we needed,” said Mau. “It’s a big momentum shift when you score and then give it right back and we did that and some by allowing a three-run big inning in the top of the second. It sucked the wind out of our sails there.”

Wagner was able to stretch their lead to 5-2 before a comeback effort from the Lancers in the late innings.

A fielder’s choice and passed ball on a dropped third strike allowed Longwood to cut the deficit to 5-4 in the seventh, but a single from Nick Mascelli in the eighth batted on Seahawk home, which proved to be too much for Longwood to overcome.

“I thought we sat back for a while then we tried to threaten late, but unfortunately ran out of time,” said Mau.

Seniors Colton Konvicka and C.J. Roth made their way back into the lineup on Sundayafter minor injuries that kept them out of Saturday’s game. Roth had not played since leaving the Sunday finale at ECU with a hamstring injury.