PEMBROKE – The 40^th-ranked UNC Pembroke baseball team hit nearly .470 with runners on base and, twice, battled back from early multi-run deficits to top visiting Indiana (Pa.), 9-7, in the front half of a series-opening doubleheader on Saturday afternoon at Sammy Cox Field.
 
Ethan Baucom (1-for-3, RBI) and Connor Grainger (1-for-4) hit back-to-back home runs in the third inning to key the win for the Braves (4-0), while Elijah Helton (0-for-1, BB) and Zach Ghelfi (1-for-2, BB) both scored a pair of runs.
 
Matt Swartz (3-for-4, 3 R) and Colin Williams (3-for-4) both turned in a trio of hits to pace the Crimson Hawks (0-1).
 
Senior Nile Ball (2-0) struck out nine and scattered eight hits across five innings of work to pick up the win for the hosts, while fellow newcomer Brandon Winstead struck out a pair over the final two frames to notch his second save in his last three appearances. Reliever Nick Kuhn (0-1) took the tough-luck loss for IUP after allowing three unearned runs in two innings of work.
 
The Crimson Hawks used a bases-loaded walk, as well as a two-run single, to plate a trio of runs in the top of the third, but the hosts answered with three scores of their own in the home-half of the inning. IUP stormed ahead again with two runs in the third, but Baucom and Grainger answered the call for UNCP in the bottom of the inning with towering blasts to left field.
 
UNCP took advantage of an ill-timed error to plate the go-ahead runs in the fifth, first scoring on a muffed throw by catcher Matt Swartz, and then finishing out the deciding frame on a two-run single by Jarratt Mobley.