MOC visits K-Tribe tonight

Published in Sports on April 5, 2005 1:54 PM

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The Mount Olive College baseball team gets to play for "fun" tonight as the Trojans head to Kinston to take on the Kinston Indians of the Carolina League in their annual exhibition game. Game time is 7 p.m. at Grainger Stadium.

Mount Olive (18-22) nearly pulled off the upset last year, building a four-run lead before Kinston chipped away and pulled out a 7-5 win on a three-run homer in its last at-bat.

The exhibition game is an opportunity to let virtually everybody play. In last year's contest, the Trojans threw seven pitchers, bringing in a new pitcher to start each inning. Mount Olive also played 17 position players during the game.

Mount Olive has won three of its last four games coming into tonight's contest, including two-of-three over the weekend in a Carolinas-Virginia Athletics Conference series at Anderson. The Trojans are currently in fifth place in the CVAC standings and have one conference series remaining.

Sophomore Stephen Nordan leads the Trojans with a .401 batting average and 18 doubles to go with 33 runs batted in. Sophomore Josh Carter is hitting .375 with a team high seven home runs and 38 RBI. Junior Lance Martin is batting .364, while freshman Anthony Williams has a .318 batting average.

On the mound, sophomore Philip Pennington is 3-1 with a 2.25 earned run average, while junior Justin Staatz is 5-4 with a 2.44 ERA. Staatz is among the CVAC leaders with 63 strikeouts. Senior Bryan Corbett is 3-2 with two saves and a 3.99 ERA.

After tonight, the Trojans head to West Virginia for a three-game non-conference series at Shepherd on Thursday and Friday.