Florence, S.C. —- The Catawba College baseball team split a pair of games Monday afternoon at the Pepsi Invitational at Francis Marion University. The Catawba Indians defeated USC Beaufort 15-3 in seven innings in the opener before falling to the host Patriots 5-2 in the second game. Catawba moves to 4-2 overall on the season.

Cameron Mills led an explosive Catawba offensive against USC Beaufort in the opener, going 3-for-5 with a double and three RBI. Levi Perrell also added three runs driven in a pair of hits, while Jackson Price added three hits including a double. Brian Meyer had three of the Sand Shark's six hits as a team.

Austin Fine got his second win in as many starts on the mound, earning a quality start of six innings pitched, giving up three runs on five hits while striking out three. Mason Gwyn pitched a shutout seventh with the game already in hand.

The runs were much harder to come by in game number two, as the Catawba Indians and Patriots were scoreless through the middle of  the sixth inning. Aided by a pair of Catawba errors in the bottom of the sixth, FMU put up five runs in the home half to take a significant lead.

Dylan Driver and Harris Jackson responded with RBI singles in the seventh and eighth innings, respectively, but the Patriots' Ben Thornton quieted the Catawba bats to record the final five outs and earn the save. Brandon Rodgers took the tough loss, giving up just one earned run on three hits in 5.1 innings pitched, striking out three.

The Catawba Indians return to Newman Park on Wednesday, hosting 16th-ranked Lenoir-Rhyne for a non-conference matchup at 3 p.m.