Enterprise Sports Writer

WINSTON-SALEM – Offensive outbursts have been the norm for High Point University this spring.

Of concern lately, though, is a struggling pitching staff whose earned run average has crept closer to the seven-run mark and an offense failing to capitalize in key moments.

“Tonight was a classic case of just leaving a team in the game, and at the end, they got the hit,” Panthers coach Craig Cozart said following an 8-7 loss to the Demon Deacons at Wake Forest Baseball Park. “Unfortunately, we aren’t good enough on the mound right now to leave teams in the game.”

High Point lost a 7-4 lead against the Deacons, who scored twice in the seventh and eighth frames. Starter Wes Torrez pitched well into the fifth inning, making just one mistake on Matt Conway’s three-run homer, while Corey Swickle allowed three runs in three innings of relief.

After Swickle hit a batter and walked another with one out in the eighth, reliever Spencer Andrews allowed a ringing double by Trenton Langston to tie the game at 7. A wild pitch with two outs brought home the winning run for Wake, which improved to 10-21 for the year.

HPU dropped to 17-13 with a sixth loss in its last seven games. The Panthers got a three-run homer from Murray White IV in the fourth inning to take a 4-1 lead, and RBI hits from Steve Antolik, Andrew Bartlett and Mike Mercurio that brought home three more runs in the fifth.

Otherwise, the Panthers struggled at the plate. White popped up with the bases loaded in the second and struck out with three on in the seventh. Max Fulginiti’s double-play grounder ended a threat in the third. Antolik’s twin-killing kept insurance runs off the board in the eighth.

In all, High Point stranded 13 runners, making a winner of reliever Joel Ernst. He pitched the final 21⁄3 after former Glenn star Eli Robins got five outs without a run scoring in his relief stint.

“We had plenty of opportunities to blow that game wide open,” said Cozart, whose team travels to Coastal Carolina for a Big South weekend series. “The first 25 games of the year, this offense was very opportunistic. If we got a two-out walk or a bases-loaded situation, we were hitting the ball hard through the gap. We’re not getting that right now.”

shanf@hpe.com | 888-3526