Falcons Fall to Army

COLUMBIA, S.C. – Air Force baseball (2-4) battled early but fell to Army, 11-3, on Saturday night at Founders Park in its second game of Salute the Troops Weekend. The Falcons collected six hits while the pitching staff combined for eight strikeouts.

Tripp Garrish and Kayden Bradshaw paced the offense with a hit and an RBI apiece, while T.J. Oster, Brooks Burdine, Ben Niednagel, and Christian Taylor rounded out the remaining hits for Air Force.

Josh Holst (0-1) earned the start on the mound, striking out four over 4.2 innings and allowing just two earned runs. Marcus Downing followed with two solid innings of relief, striking out two batters and surrendering a run. Freshmen Trey Rutledge and Aiden Poe later saw action out of the bullpen but each allowed three runs.

Army struck first with a pair of runs in the top of the opening frame, 2-0.

The Falcons answered in the bottom of the third to even the score. Bradshaw opened the inning with a walk and moved to third on an Oster double. A wild pitch brought Bradshaw home before Garrish drove in Oster with a groundout to knot the game at 2-2.

After a scoreless fourth, the Black Knights regained momentum with two runs in the fifth and another in the sixth to take a 5-2 advantage.

Air Force responded again in the seventh. Burdine ripped a one-out double to right field and came around to score on Bradshaw's single up the middle, trimming the deficit to 5-3.

Army delivered the decisive blow in the eighth with a three-run homer to extend the lead to 8-3, then added three more runs in the ninth to secure the 11-3 final.

The Falcons will wrap up Salute the Troops Weekend on Sunday, Feb. 22, against South Carolina at 4 p.m. ET / 2 p.m. MT.

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Team Stats

Tripp Garrish

Christian Taylor

Ben Niednagel

Brooks Burdine

Players Mentioned

Kayden Bradshaw

Brooks Burdine

Marcus Downing

Tripp Garrish

Josh Holst

Ben Niednagel

T.J. Oster

Aiden Poe

Trey Rutledge

Christian Taylor

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