LAURINBURG —Stewart Evans registered three RBIs on a pair of hits to lead Scotland’s baseball team to a 7-2 win over Richmond on Thursday.
The Fighting Scots finished off a sweep of their regular-season series with the Raiders.
Scotland’s Tyler Barfield notched three strikeouts and allowed four hits in 4 2/3 innings of work. He was relieved by Austin Norton, one of the five seniors the team recognized before the game.
Norton held Richmond hitless in 2 1/3 innings of work. Having the chance to close out a rivalry win in his last regular-season home game made the moment special for Norton.
“It feels amazing. I can’t explain it,” Norton said. “The four years we’ve been here, we’ve always beat them at their place but never won on senior night here. It feels amazing just to win here.”
Scotland (10-7, 9-5 SAC) played its final regular-season Sandhills Athletic Conference game of the year. The Scots will compete at the West Brunswick Beach Diamond Invitational next week.
Richmond (15-6, 11-3) lost its third straight game. The Scots also beat the Raiders 1-0 on Tuesday behind a one-hitter by Michael Johnson.
“I thought we swung the bats really well tonight,” Scotland coach Chad Hill said. “We had some good at-bats against some good pitching. Played some good defense.”
Richmond got on the scoreboard first with a sacrifice fly by Garet Weigman in the first inning. In the bottom of the first, Scotland tied the game at 1-all with an RBI groundout by Stewart Evans.
In the bottom of the second inning, Scotland scored a pair of runs with the help of a couple of errors by Richmond. With two outs in the inning, Tyler Faulk hit an RBI triple. Evans followed Faulk’s hit with an RBI single to make the score 5-1.
The score remained that way until the top of the fifth inning. Richmond’s Cam Carraway hit an RBI single to trim Scotland’s lead to 5-2.
Evans hit an RBI double to increase Scotland’s lead to 6-2 in the bottom of the sixth inning. His hit scored Matt Sellers, who had registered a 1-out triple. Evans then scored on an RBI double by Nick Callahan.
Other scores from Thursday night
Softball: Richmond 4, Scotland 1
Soccer: Richmond 4, Scotland 1 – Sarah Eury scored Scotland’s goal. Scotland’s season is now over.
