The Furman Paladins baseball team was off to the team’s best start to a season since 1926 before dropping two out of three games in a road series against Davidson last weekend.
Currently the team sits at fourth in the Southern Conference with a 14-6 overall record but only a 5-4 record in conference games.
Furman opened the series with a promising six-run victory over the Wildcats before getting blown out 22 to 2. In the Mar. 17 rubber match to decide the series Davidson got out to a 5-0 lead before Furman came back in the ninth to go up 6-5 on Chris Ohmstede’s second home run of the day and team-leading fourth of the season.
However, closer Ben Carlson suffered his first blown save of the season in the bottom of the ninth when he gave up the tying run.
Then Carlson was handed his first loss of the season in the tenth when Davidson won on a walk off single to center field.
Before the series loss to Davidson, the Paladins were ranked #38 in CollegeBaseball360.com’s Top 50 poll as well as #18 in a poll done by CollegeBaseballInsider.com.
Losing to Davidson was certainly a set-back, but the team is still off to a great start through the first third of the season, and continued success could certainly see the Paladins earn a spot in the NCAA Tournament at the end of the regular season.
Furman is hitting an impressive .301 as a team and are paced by a number of upperclassmen leaders at the plate. Senior cleanup hitter and catcher/first-baseman Paul Nitto is hitting .329 with 2 homeruns and 17 RBIs but saw his NCAA Division I leading hitting streak come to an end last week at 25 games.
After that, the ‘Dins return home to host a series against Presbyterian College before a game against the South Carolina Gamecocks at Flour Field in downtown Greenville on Apr. 3.
Over the next few weeks, the Paladins will fight to earn national recognition against strong conference foes.