NEWPORT NEWS, Va. -- With an 11-7 win at Captains Park on Saturday, the No. 1 Christopher Newport baseball team extended their win streak to 13 while snapping the 15th-ranked Salisbury University roll at the same number. The Captains improved to 22-2 overall, 10-0 against league foes while the Sea Gulls fell to 19-5-1, 9-1.
Junior outfielder
Trey Hicks bridged Moores Lane beyond the left field wall twice with a pair of powerful home runs, leading the top-ranked CNU offense to their record-shattering eighth straight game with 10 runs or more. Scoring runs at an historic rate, the Captains had never registered more than five consecutive games in double figures in program history prior to the current stretch of eight straight and 11 of the last 12 games.
Hicks finished the game 2-for-4 with 3 RBI and 3 runs scored to lead the way as CNU pounded out 13 more hits as a team for 11 runs. Hicks went yard twice, giving the transfer outfielder six on the year to rank second on the team. The Poquoson, Va. native also made the finest defensive play of the afternoon when he robbed Justin Meekins of a base hit with a full-out diving snag close to the line in right field to end the top of the eighth inning.
The Captains saw six players log multi-hit performances in the game and the team combined for six extra-base hits. In addition to Hicks' two home runs,
Seth Woodard blasted a solo shot late in the game and senior
Jordan Mason added a double and a triple.
Joseph Cutchins rounded out the extra-base knocks with a double that rattled off the left field wall.
CNU took a 3-1 lead after two, but the Sea Gulls jumped ahead, 6-3, after four and a half frames. Salisbury put four unearned runs on the board against CNU sophomore starter
Josh Husby in the fifth inning to re-take the lead. The lead would not last long, however, as a two-run homer from Hicks capped a five-run bottom half of the inning that gave CNU the lead for good.
Cutchins' double led off the inning before Salisbury starter, Clayton Dwyer (5-2), got the next two batters to pop up. With two outs, though, CNU got to work.
Nick DiNapoli walked and
Nicholas Baham hit a hard shot to the gap in right center to plate the first run. Mason stepped in and followed Baham to the same spot, sprinting around the bases for a game-tying triple. That set up Hicks' big blast to put the Captains ahead, 8-6, with a lead they would not relinquish.
Courtesy of the big inning, Husby was put in line for the win and picked up his sixth victory of the season. He struck out four in 5.0 innings of work while giving up five hits and a pair of walks. In relief,
Tyler Jumper allowed one run in the sixth to cut the lead in half, but CNU held on from there, tacking on single runs in the sixth, seventh, and eighth innings for the final spread, 11-7. Jumper worked two innings with a pair of strikeouts before giving way to
Brian Owens in a save situation to start the eighth inning. Owens picked up a three-pitch strikeout to start his outing, and quickly worked through the eighth without any issue. He was called on to finish the game in the ninth for his first save of the season and capped his two perfect innings of relief with another strikeout, flyball, and weak groundball to first to end the game.
During the win,
Jordan Mason moved past Matt Turner to become the all-time leader in at-bats at Christopher Newport with 639. He also moved into the top-ten all-time in career starts with 144, tying Parker Neal, and career doubles with 38, tying Steven Lindemuth and Connor Madden in CNU lore.
The 13-game win streak is tied for the third longest in program history with a stretch during the 2002 season. CNU won 18 straight in 2018 and a record 26 in a row during the 2011 campaign.
The Captains and Sea Gulls will return to action on Sunday starting at Noon with a doubleheader to complete the CAC three-game series. Live stats and a live video webcast will be available at CNUsports.com.
