Baseball Team Drops East Tennessee State 7-1

April 2, 2002

A solid performance from Clemson pitchers and back-to-back home runs proved to be the difference in a 7-1 victory over East Tennessee State on Tuesday night. Clemson, now on an 11-game hitting streak, improved to 24-1 while dropping the Buccaneers to 7-18.

B.J. LaMura (2-0) had his second straight solid outing and picked up the win. The junior righthander yielded just two hits, one run and no walk while striking out six. LaMura retired 12 straight batters at one point and used only 68 pitches in six innings. Relievers Jeff Hourigan and Tyler Lumsden combined to throw three shutout innings and as a group, the Clemson hurlers struck out 10 batters while walking none.

East Tennessee jumped on the board first with Caleb Moore’s solo home run to left field in the third inning. Clemson loaded the bases in the bottom of the frame with a Zane Green walk and singles by Garrick Evans and Roberto Valiente. Khalil Greene’s sacrifice fly plated one run and an error by rightfielder Kirk Keithley allowed Evans to score to give the Tigers a 2-1 lead.

The Tiger home run attack struck in the fifth. Greene sent the first pitch he saw from Buccaneer pitcher Jackson Simerly deep to left-center, and Jeff Baker followed by sending the next pitch to almost the same spot to give Clemson a 4-1 advantage.

Clemson tacked on insurance runs in the eighth inning. With runners on first and second, Zane Green faked a bunt and then drilled the ball to right center for a two-run triple. He scored on Garrick Evans’ groundout to make the final margin 7-1.

Seth Miller started his second game of the year and led the offense with a 2-3 performance. Greene led the Tigers with two RBIs.

Clemson will host Winthrop Wednesday night at 7:15 at Doug Kingsmore Stadium.