A two-run single off the bat of pinch hitter Brandon Stahlman propelled the Charlotte 49ers baseball team to a 10-0 victory in seven innings over Radford on Tuesday evening (April 4) at Hayes Stadium.

It's Charlotte's (14-14, 5-4) second-consecutive shutout after blanking UAB 5-0 on Sunday to win the series against the Blazers. The shutout represents the 15th time the Green and White have had two straight shutout victories and marks the first time it's happened since the 2011 season when Charlotte beat Richmond 1-0 and 6-0 in the final two games of a series in May that year, en route to an NCAA Regional appearance.
 
Scoring came early and often for the home team, with CLT scoring in six of the seven frames and putting up a crooked number in three of them.
 
The 10-run rule was in effect for the game and the 49ers loaded the bases in the bottom of the seventh after three consecutive walks from the Radford (7-22, 0-6 Big South) pitcher with the score sitting at 8-0. Stahlman was the fourth different pinch hitter in the inning for Charlotte and bounced one off the wall in center to bring home the two runs needed to end the game early.
 
It's the second seven-inning run-rule victory for the Niners this season after beating Ball State 19-5 in seven frames during opening weekend.
 
Charlotte scored its 10 runs on 10 hits from seven different players and eight walks drawn. Three of the hits were home runs, with Austin Knight, Jack Dragum, and Jake Cunningham all leaving the yard in the Niners' 10th multi-homer game of the season and fifth game with at least three longballs.
 
Kaden Hopson, Cam Fisher, and Dante DeFranco all had a pair of hits in the game, with Fisher doubling once and DeFranco twice. It was Fisher's team-leading 13th multi-hit game of the season while DeFranco picked up his second and Hopson added his sixth.
 
It was a staff day on the mound for the Green and White, with five different arms combining for the shutout. Collin Kramer got the game started and tossed the first three frames, striking out four while allowing two hits to pick up his second win of the season. Clark Dearman followed and gave up the visitors' third and final hit in the fourth inning while Breven Yarbro, Miles Langhorne, and Nick Cosentino all only faced three batters in each of their one inning pitched.
 
Yarbro gave up a walk but induced the second double play of the game to face the minimum in the fifth inning. Langhorne struck out a pair and sat the side down in order in the sixth and Cosentino got all three batters he faced on strikes, throwing just 12 pitches to record the trio of Ks. The Niners struck out a total of 10 Highlanders in the game, giving CLT 15 games out of 28 played with double-digit strikeouts on the mound.
 
HOW IT HAPPENED
Charlotte had its biggest inning of the day to start the game off, bringing around three in the first. After Kramer got the first double play of the game in the top half of the inning to face only three in the frame, a single from Hopson, a walk drawn by Dragum, and a double off the wall in right by Fisher brought the first run in. Dragum scored and Fisher moved to third on a wild pitch before the latter came home on a double play ball.
 
The Niners tacked on one in the second when Knight cleared the trees in center field for his fourth home run of the season. Charlotte was held off the scoreboard for the only inning in the third before Dragum hit a two-run shot in the fourth. DeFranco led the inning off with his first double down the line in left of the day before Dragum brought him in with one swing of the bat with two outs.
 
Cunningham led off the fifth inning with his home run in the game and Fisher brought another one home in the sixth when he found a gap through the right side to plate DeFracno from second after he hit his second double down the left-field line in the game.
 
Radford turned to its third arm of the game for the seventh inning and he had trouble finding the strike zone. After getting the first batter out, he issued a five-pitch walk, followed by a four-pitch walk before missing wild to move both runners into scoring position.
 
Eli Weisner was at the plate for the wild pitch and worked a walk after being down in the count 1-2 to load the bases for Stahlman. In a hitter's count of 3-1, Stahlman put one over the center fielder's head and off the wall to bring the two runners in scoring position home and end the game. He only got a single out of the at bat after the Radford defender looked like he had a bead on it, forcing the runners to hold up. The relay to the plate was close, but Spencer Nolan slid across the dish before the ball arrived to stop the contest early.
 
UP NEXT
Charlotte hosts Conference USA first-place No. 24 UTSA at The Hayes this weekend in a pivotal C-USA series. The three-game set is currently scheduled to begin Thursday (April 6) at 6 p.m., followed by games on Friday at 6 p.m. and Saturday at 1 p.m. due to Sunday being Easter.