What Presbyterian College used to play baseball games looked like bats, but they behaved like wands.

Magic wands.

Sunday’s 16-13 victory over Gardner-Webb was just another stark, raving mad, wondrous, wacky adventure.

Elton Pollock Field was the Wild West.

Sean Hollister

On Saturday, Gardner-Webb (11-14, 1-5 Big South) scored 11 runs in an inning … and lost. On Sunday, the Runnin’ Bulldogs once led 10-5 … and lost. GWU hit three grand slams in the series … and lost all three games.

Powered by two home runs and a double from center fielder Ryan Ouzts, the Blue Hose scored eight runs in the fourth inning.

The teams combined for 29 runs, 28 hits and three errors.

Ouzts was 4/5, driving in six runs and scoring three. Gardner-Webb right fielder Lawson Knight was also 4/5 with three runs scored but did not drive in a run. Right fielder Ethan Liao belted a grand slam.

In the Presbyterian fourth, Ouzts led off with a blast to left. Ryan Becker followed with a single, and Brody Linker drew a walk. With Rhogue Wallace pinch-running for Becker, Eli Lazio laid down a bunt single to load the bases. Albertus, Hobson, Randolph, and Dewberry each worked walks to bring in four runs. Later in the inning, Wallace stepped up for his first at-bat and roped a three-run double down the left-field line, putting the Blue Hose ahead, 13-11.

Jacob Fields closed the door in the ninth, striking out two and holding the Bulldogs scoreless to earn his fifth save of the season and clinch the sweep.

Presbyterian (12-13, 4-2) hits the road for a midweek matchup against the Clemson Tigers on Wednesday, March 23 with a first pitch set for 6 p.m.

Take a look at the stats here.

Saturday’s game was a blast. It was far out.

Awesome.

The Runnin’ Bulldogs scored 11 eighth-inning runs – with two grand slams in the inning! – and PC still won, 14-13..

Presbyterian got the fireworks going with six runs in the second inning – three walks, four hits, Eli Lazio’s three-run homer — and added another in the third.

After six innings, the Hose led, 10-0, and it looked like it wasn’t enough. In the eighth inning, Gardmer-Webb sent eight pinch-hitters to the plate, and when the smoke cleared, led 13-12.

With two out, Aaron Hobson drilled a two-run single in the bottom of the eighth, and after Sean Hollister came in to pitch and retired GWU in order, the Blue Hose escaped.

This box score is a keeper.

Presbyterian College men’s basketball ended Sunday evening in exactly the same manner, in exactly the same place (Daytona Beach, Fla.), with exactly the same record, as a year earlier.

Illinois State (20-14) defeated the Blue Hose, 78-70, in the CollegeBasketballInsider.com postseason tournament at Ocean Center, where again PC (14-19) was the only school in the field with a losing record. Illinois State led, 33-30, at halftime.

A year earlier, Montana needed overtime to win, 82-79.

Kory Mincy scored a game-high 21 points for rhe Hose. Kobe Stewart scored 15 points and grabbed eight rebounds. Qadir Pettaway scored 10 off the bench.

Jaylen Peterson recorded three blocked shots to set the program’s Division I-era record for for a season with 52. He broke the record of 51 set by William Truss in 2013-14.

Four players scored in double figures for the Redbirds, led by Chase Walker with 20 points. Ty Pence added 17. Dalton Banks and Johnny Kinziger each chipped in 10. Walker also grabbed nine rebounds.

Banks handed out five assists. PC was credited for that many in the entire game.

Charleston Southern derailed PC’s softball team on Saturday, sweeping a doubleheader, 11-2 and 9-1, in North Charleston after the Blue Hose won a single game on Friday.

The losses dropped the Blue Hose to 18-15, 3-3 in the Big South.

PC returns to the Low Country on Wednesday to play two at College of Charleston.

The lone highlight was the performances of Kendall Owens and Morgan Farthing. They both went 2/2 in game one.

In the Pyramid Event Open Heat, Presbyterian (5-2) posted the program’s first-ever perfect 10 score, though the Blue Hose lost , 259.625-254.105, to Saint Leo at Templeton Center in acrobatics and tumbling.
The PC track team, led by junior Isabel Whitman and freshman David Hamer’s school-record breaking performances, participated in the 49er Classic in Charlotte.

Whitman beat the two-year-old 1,500-meter school record, previously held by Keyli Gomez, by five seconds: 5:08.61. She placed 40^th.

Harner broke the 3,000 record set three weeks earlier by Noah Kaufman. He came in 19th at  a time of 9:38.82.
The latest threat to everyone’s well-being is microplastics. Our body absorbs them from drinking from plastic bottles, sucking on plastic straws and eating from plastic plates.

There is nothing we can do about it. We should’ve never stopped drinking Cokes from glass bottles and saving them for the deposit. We should’ve washed our dishes in the sinks and hung our clothes on a line in the backyard.

I haven’t seen a clothesline in a while.

That reminds me. I’ve got to go to the laundromat. My dryer’s broke down. I’m not going to be buying a new one any time soon. I’m satisfied a repairman would tell me it’d cost less to get a new one. He’d probably have one to sell me.

Don’t mind me. I get pessimistic now and then.

I was thinking that I wished I’d gone over to PC to watch the game in which the Blue Hose overcame an 11-run inning, but then I realized I wouldn’t have stayed. On Sunday, when I did go, I didn’t stay, either, but it was more because I just got parched in the sunshine. I took some photos and headed home, figuring, well, they won two out of three.

Oh, me of little faith.

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Crazy of Natural Causes is about a coach who is nearly killed in an automobile accident, gets religion and finds out there’s not much religion in those who preach it for money. Forgive Us Our Trespasses is a tale of small-town corruption.