MONTGOMERY, Ala. - Clutch plays held up a hot start for the Eagles in game one of the SSAC Series of the Week with an 8-4 victory over Brewton-Parker Friday night at Harrison Field.

In the early stages of the game, Faulkner found seeing-eye singles and kept the machine rolling. Wesley Estrella singled home Orlando Lorduy for the first run of the game in the first inning. Jose Vargas delivered a two-RBI single to score Estrella and Evan Gilliam to take a 3-0 lead. 

Estrella added another in the second with another single to score Juan Trinidad and take a four run lead.

Gilliam drew a leadoff walk in the third before scoring on a Francisco Soriano single. Soriano later scored as the Eagles capitalized on a pair of errors offa Trinidad batted ball to take a 6-0 lead.

Coming off an upset over Reinhardt in the midweek and a dramatic come-from-behind win to take the series from Blue Mountain last weekend, the Barons were unphased by the lead Faulkner had built. Alex Muns cooled the home bats and allowed his offense to cut the advantage to 6-3 in the sixth when Kendall Wade singled into right field and attempted stretching to a double, but Orlando Lorduy launched a frozen rope from the outfield to Juan Trinidad to end the inning, giving Faulkner a big spark. 

The Barons scored one more in the seventh, but Marco Ozuna got his 10th strikeout of the day with his 119th pitch to and the seventh with a 6-4 lead. The right-hander from Casa Grande, Arizona earned his fourth win on the hill and allowed just three earned runs and six hits on the evening while picking up double-figure strikeouts. "I wanna give their hitters credit," Head Coach Patrick McCarthy said. "They were patient. They ran his pitch count up." 

In the eighth, Jordan Destefano took the hill and worked a three up, three down inning to put the bats back into the Faulkner hands. 

Zakary Farris led off the inning with a pinch hit single ahead of Trinidad reaching on a fielder's choice to bring Lorduy to the plate where Lorduy just needed one pitch to take the wind out of the Brewton-Parker sails with a two run homer to right. "[Lorduy's] work ethic is unprecedented," McCarthy said. "His work ethic prepares him for these moments."

Destefano closed out the game and earned the save after  another one-two-three frame with back-to-back punchouts to seal it. McCarthy loves what the relief pitcher from Tampa, Florida brings to the table. "He's a different cat. His nickname is "Psycho" so he's perfect at the end of the game to beat people. He's got a great closer mentality." 

The Eagles sit atop the SSAC standings with a 4-0 record and a one game lead after four or five conference games for most teams in the league and are 9-2 overall. 

Faulkner looks to win the series Saturday as the two sides meet again for a doubleheader at 1 p.m. at Harrison Field. Read Full Article