NEWS

The Wildcats celebrating Scotty Edwards' homerun during Friday's game. (News of Davidson photo)

FRIDAY — Scotty Edwards homered early and delivered a two-RBI single late to help lift Davidson past Fordham 9-8 in the Atlantic 10 Conference opener Friday afternoon at Wilson Field.

With their fifth straight victory, the Wildcats improved to 9-7, while Fordham dropped to 6-10.

Early on, it appeared no late-game key hits would be necessary, as the Wildcats built a 7-2 lead through five innings, with Edwards hitting a two-run home run in the third. But Fordham hit three home runs, including two in a five-run fifth, and took an 8-7 lead on a solo blast by Joey Donnelly in the eighth.

The Wildcats responded in the bottom of the inning, however, and loaded the bases with singles from Will Brooks and Matthew Vannoy and a walk by Anthony Torreso. With no outs, Edwards singled in Brooks and Vannoy for the tying and go-ahead runs.

Ivan Hoyt then struck out two and pitched a scoreless ninth to earn his fourth save of the season and second of the week.

Davidson scored three runs in the fourth, including one on a Vannoy single and two on a Torreso single, and pushed the lead to five runs in the fifth via RBIs from Aidan Rice (single) and Brooks (groundout).

Starter Wilson Perkins settled in after allowing two early Fordham runs and threw six innings, facing nearly the minimum in his final three frames. He allowed four hits and struck out four.

SATURDAY — Davidson and Fordham will meet in a Sunday rubber game after the visiting Rams evened the Atlantic 10 weekend series with a 6-4 win at Wilson Field Saturday afternoon.

The loss ended the Wildcats' win streak at five games and dropped them to 9-8 overall and 1-1 in league play. Fordham (7-10) is also 1-1 in the A-10.

Rams starting pitcher Chase Hamawalt struck out 13 and held the Wildcats to one hit — an Anthony Torreso fourth-inning single — for six innings before the Wildcats broke through. The Rams led 6-0 when Theo Loughlin drove in two on a bases-loaded single in the seventh.

Davidson threatened in the ninth, getting two runners aboard with no outs and pushing both across. But the Rams closed the door with the tying run at the plate.

Torreso and Loughlin had two hits apiece, and Loughlin had three RBIs.

Starter Cooper Cavanaugh threw 3.1 innings, allowed four hits and two earned runs and struck out three.

SUNDAY — Fordham scored 15 runs in the ninth inning and rolled to a 26-3 series-clinching win at Wilson Field Sunday afternoon.

With the loss, the Wildcats dropped to 9-9 overall and 1-2 in the Atlantic 10.

Fordham (8-10, 2-1) led 2-0 early before Theo Loughlin tied the game with a two-run single in the fourth. Then the Rams scored six in the fifth and three in the seventh to break open the game. But they did most of their damage in the ninth off nine hits, including a Madden Ocko grand slam, and two Wildcat errors.

Will Brooks provided the other Wildcat offensive highlight, an RBI-double in the seventh.

Starter Ed Hall threw 4.2 innings in the loss.