SPARTANBURG, S.C. – The Edwards era of Wofford baseball began in style Friday night at Russell C. King Field, as the Terriers tallied a walk-off Opening Day victory 12-11 over Towson with Brice Martinez scoring on a wild pitch.
 
The game was the first for the program under the direction of head coach J.J. Edwards, who picked up his first win as the skipper. He is the third-straight coach of the program to win his first game in charge.
 
"It's awesome, but I'm more excited for our players," said Edwards of his first win. "We had a lot of transition this summer. There are a lot of new faces out here, a lot of guys who stayed faithful to Wofford and to me, and I really appreciate that. So it's all that hard work putting into one, and we're fortunate to come out on top tonight."
 
Morgan Lunceford (1-0) earned the win in relief after tossing the final 4.2 innings of the game in his Wofford debut. He tallied three strikeouts while allowing three runs on six hits. Dylan Rhadans was the Opening Day starter, going 2.2 innings with four runs allowed and three punchouts to no walks. Dom Marcoccio tossed 1.1 innings of no-run ball with a pair of punchouts, and Sam Stratton bridged the gap to Lunceford with 0.1 innings on the bump with four runs (three earned) allowed.
 
Towson's final pitcher Luis Rivera (0-1) was tagged with the loss after surrendering the winning run in just his 0.1 innings of action. He gave up just one hit but threw the decisive wild pitch that allowed the winning run to score.
 
The contest was a back-and-forth offensive battle with 29 combined hits between the clubs. Wofford tallied 13 to Towson's 16, but defense also played a pivotal role as the Tigers were guilty of three errors to just the lone mistake by Wofford.
 
Junior transfer Tyler Hare shined in his Wofford debut, recording three hits, including his first-career home run. He drove home four runs and scored two more himself. Marshall Toole, Dixon Black and Adam Haber all tallied two hits to also notch multi-hit days at the dish. Black added in a walk to reach base safely three times while notching a pair of RBI. Haber's base knocks were his first in a Terrier uniform. Andrew Mannelly drove home a run as well and recorded the lone Terrier steal of the game.
 
The contest opened with Wofford jumping in front in a hurry. Marshall Toole opened his season with a triple in the bottom of the first, and Dixon Black singled him home quickly thereafter. Later in the frame with the bases loaded, Tyler Hare came through with his first hit as a Terrier, a single to right that plated a pair. He then got into a rundown between first and second that allowed a third run to come across on the play, giving Wofford the early 4-0 edge.
 
But Towson would respond in the following inning, plating two in the top of the second. A pair of RBI doubles halved the Wofford advantage to 4-2.
 
In the bottom of the frame, Black again came through with an RBI single, this time scoring Jack Renwick, for a 5-2 lead.
 
The Tigers then began to chip away, hitting a two-run home run in the third to pull within a run. In the fifth, Towson found a rhythm to claim its first lead of the game. A wild pitch tied the contest, and back-to-back run-scoring singles gave the Tigers an 8-5 lead.
 
But Wofford would not go quietly either, wasting no time responding with two runs in the bottom of the fifth. Andrew Mannelly roped a double into left center to plate Black. Later in the inning, Wofford took advantage of a Towson mistake to score after Mannelly swiped third base. An errant throw then allowed him to race home to pull Wofford within a run, 8-7.
 
An inning later, Toole hit into a double play that brought in the tying run. The score was 8-8 and stayed as such for a couple of innings.
 
In the eighth, Wofford seemed to break through. With David Wiley on base, Hare clutched up and blasted the first homer of his career, an opposite field shot over the trees in left field. The Terriers followed that up by capitalizing on another Towson miscue later in the frame, as a balk allowed Adam Haber to come home and make the lead 11-8.
 
"It was an awesome feeling," said Hare of his home run. "I got a fastball over the plate that I could handle and did some damage. That's all I'm trying to do."
 
But Towson did not roll over. In the top of the ninth, the Tigers pushed back with a pair of RBI doubles, and then a run-scoring single plated the tying run for an 11-11 ballgame.
 
The game entered a pivotal bottom of the ninth, and Wofford was ready. Brice Martinez led-off the inning, and he reached on an infield single that the Tiger third baseman was forced to eat. In what proved to be an omen of things to come, a wild pitch moved Martinez over to second, and Gunnar Johnson put down a perfectly executed sacrifice bunt to advance Martinez to third. With the fifth-year second baseman 90 feet away from home, another ball in the dirt gave him his chance to end the contest. Martinez slid safely across the plate as the ball skipped away for the 12-11 Opening Day victory on the walk-off wild pitch.
 
"It's amazing. We played hard all game, and some things didn't go our way, but you just keep battling and you play hard and good things happen," said Martinez of the walk-off win. "I had teammates who were going to get it done if that (wild pitch) didn't happen, but I was just fighting up there and battling. I ended up getting on base, and we knew that they spin a lot of breaking balls, so I knew that there was probably going to be something in the dirt and if it was, I'd take advantage of it."
 
Wofford continues its opening weekend tomorrow afternoon with a 4:00 p.m. contest against Bucknell. The Terriers then rematch the Tigers Sunday afternoon at 2:00 p.m. to close the weekend. Both games will take place at Russell C. King Field.