RADFORD HOLDS ON FOR ROAD WIN AT ETSU

BOX SCORE JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. - Playing on the road for the first time in nine games Wednesday, Radford pushed its record to five games above .500 for the second time this season with a 7-6 victory at East Tennessee State. Hunter Higgerson drove in four runs, and Alexander Lee plated three for the Highlanders (22-17). Daniel Bridgeman (1-1) earned his first victory of the season, and Ryan Meisinger recorded his first save.

Josh Gardiner led off the game with a single, and Lee drove in his first run of the night in the top of the first with an RBI single to give starter Mitchell MacKeith a lead before taking the mound. MacKeith allowed two runs in the third inning before being replaced by Bridgeman after 2.2 innings tossed. Bridgeman came into the game and lasted 2.2 innings and gave up a pair of runs, but the Highlanders' offense earned him the victory.

After ETSU took a 2-1 lead to the fourth, Radford rallied with four runs in the fifth to take the lead for good. Lee drove in two runs with a single, and Higgerson's two-RBI double pushed the lead to 5-2.

ETSU scored single runs in the fifth and sixth and had the tying run at third base with one out when James Woods entered the game to work out of the jam retain the lead for Bridgemand and the Highlanders. After Woods retired the Buccaneers' leading hitter, Clinton Freeman, to start the seventh, the left-hander stayed in the game in right field when Michael Costello came to the mound.

Again, Higgerson came through at the plate prior with a ground rule double that drove in two runs to push the lead to 7-4 in top of the seventh.

ETSU did not go quietly, however. The Bucs rallied for two more runs in the eighth to cut the lead to 7-6, but Costello got Chris Cook to ground out with the Highlanders holding on to the slimmest of leads. Woods returned to the mound to face one batter, Freeman, in the ninth. He struck him out, and Meisinger finished off the game with two more strikeouts.

Radford begins a five-game home stand Friday night vs. Qunnipiac beginning at 6:30 p.m.

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