LEXINGTON, Va. – With Zac Cowan's seven shutout innings on the mound and 15 hits at the dish, the Wofford baseball team bounced back Friday afternoon to defeat VMI 11-0 in seven innings at Gray-Minor Stadium to even the series at 1-1. The Terriers improve to 17-7 (4-1 SoCon) with the win while the Keydets fall to 13-15 (1-4 SoCon).
 
Cowan (5-0) delivered a stellar performance on the bump in a starting effort by tossing all 7.0 innings for the win. Those seven frames of work are a new career high. He surrendered only four hits and one walk while striking out five. Only two Keydets reached second base in the contest, and no one did so on Cowan past the fourth inning. Seemingly better as the game went along, he closed it out with back-to-back 1-2-3 innings in the sixth and seventh.
 
Andrew Jones (2-3) was tagged with the loss for VMI in a starting role. He gave up seven runs on six hits and one walk in 4.0 innings.
 
Eight of the nine Terriers in the lineup recorded a hit, and seven of those eight had two hits. Marshall Toole, Dixon Black, Andrew Mannelly, Tyler Hare, Tyler Bak, Jack Renwick and Daniel Jackson all tallied two hits in the game. Mannelly drove home a team-high three runs with Hare and Martinez each adding two RBI. Black and David Wiley both tacked on one. One of Mannelly's hits was a home run, his fifth of the season. With his pair of knocks, Toole extended his on-base streak to 24 games, and he added his 20^th steal of the season.
 
This was Wofford's 15^th game scoring double-digit runs and 17^th with double-digit hits this season.
 
Wofford posted three runs in the top of the first to grab a quick advantage. The Terriers first scored with a Brice Martinez RBI fielder's choice that plated Dixon Black. Tyler Hare smoked a single through the right side a batter later that scored Martinez, and Daniel Jackson would finally race home on a wild pitch to grant Wofford a quick 3-0 lead.
 
After three scoreless innings, the Terriers began to pull away with four runs in the fifth. The first three of those runs came on three-straight RBI singles. The first came from Black with Andrew Mannelly and Martinez following. A batter later, Hare added one of his own to make the score 7-0.
 
Three more runs came across for Wofford in the sixth to truly put the game away. With the bases loaded, Black grounded into a double play that enabled Tyler Bak to score. Mannelly then came up to bat with a runner on, and he clubbed a two-run bomb to right to stretch the Terrier advantage to 10-0.
 
In the top of the seventh, Wofford added one more run with a David Wiley RBI groundout for an 11-0 lead.
 
Zac Cowan remained on the hill in the seventh and set VMI down in order to close out the contest and seal the shutout run-rule triumph for the Terriers, 11-0.
 
With the series even at 1-1, Wofford and VMI will settle it with game three tomorrow afternoon. First pitch for the rubber match is set for 1:00 p.m. at Gray-Minor Stadium. The contest will not be streamed, but there will be live stats available.