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RADFORD, Va.—The University of Evansville baseball team dropped its series opener at Radford Saturday afternoon, 5-0, as Radford senior starter Eric Evans and reliever Abram Williams combined on a two-hit shutout.

 

Evans tossed eight scoreless innings of one-hit baseball while striking out a career-high 10 men to improve to 1-1 on the year.  Williams then worked around an Andrew Gher two-out single to record a scoreless ninth inning and preserve the 5-0 win.

 

Evans and UE freshman right-hander Matthew Page exchanged scoreless frames until the  fourth inning, when Radford DH Raphael Turner and outfielder Reggie Keen followed back-to-back doubles by preseason Wallace Award Watch List candidates Alex Gregory and Nate Toth with consecutive RBI singles to give the Highlanders a 2-0 lead.

 

Radford would tack on another run in the fifth inning on a sacrifice fly by Gregory to move the lead to 3-0, before an Evansville error opened the door for two unearned runs in the sixth inning to give Radford a 5-0 cushion.  The five runs were more than enough for Evans, who gave up just an Alex Acheson lead-off single in the fourth inning and a pair of walks in eight innings of work to record the victory.

 

Page (0-2) suffered the loss for Evansville, giving up three runs on five base hits in 4.1 innings of work.  Fellow rookie Zach Taylor also worked 3.2 innings on the mound, giving up just two unearned runs on three singles and two strikeouts.

 

With the victory, Radford improves to 4-1 on the year.  Evansville, meanwhile, drops to 0-5.  The two teams will conclude the series on Sunday at 11:00 a.m. central time with a doubleheader at Radford’s Dedmon Center Park.