DUE WEST, SC – Ninth-ranked Francis Marion University pounded out 20 hits, all singles, en route to a 13-5 road victory over Erskine College, Wednesday afternoon (May 4) in non-conference baseball action.

Francis Marion concludes its regular season with a 36-12 record, while Erskine finishes its 2011 campaign with a 28-24 mark.  The Patriots also learned on Wednesday that they moved up to second in the latest NCAA Division II Southeast Region poll.

Francis Marion will face Augusta State University on Sunday at 12:30 p.m. in the opening round of the 2011 Peach Belt Conference Tournament in Columbus, Ga.

FMU junior center fielder Buddy Sosnoskie was 4-for-5 with three RBIs while extending his hitting streak to 20 games.  Junior second baseman Brock McCallister was also 4-for-5 with two runs scored and two driven in.  Freshman third baseman Michael Wilson, senior left fielder Martin Gordon, and senior shortstop Tyler Cappelmann all rapped out three hits.  Cappelmann also scored twice and drove in three runs, while Gordon registered two RBIs.

Senior right-hander Corey Carver (2-1), the fourth of six FMU pitchers on Wednesday, earned the win with two scoreless innings.  Unbeaten freshman righty Jeffrey Stoner started the game and blanked the Flying Fleet for two frames as FMU head coach Art Inabinet had predetermined that he was going to use multiple pitching arms in the regular-season finale.

FMU took a 2-0 lead in the top of the second inning on back-to-back RBI singles by Cappelmann and catcher Brian Paulhus.  The Patriots would tack on two more runs in the third to go up 4-0.

In the bottom of the fourth, Erskine scored five times to rally for a 5-4 advantage. The lead would be short-lived as the Patriot offense exploded for seven runs in the top of the fifth and then added two insurance runs in the eighth frame.  In the decisive fifth inning, Sosnoskie led off with a single and later drilled a two-run single, while Gordon also had two hits in the frame as well as an RBI.

Casey Winckowski led the Fleet at the plate going 2-for-4 with a run scored, while Shawn Glover was 2-for-3 with an RBI double.  Luke Danielewicz added a two-run pinch-hit single.  Senior Andrew Guest (7-4) took the loss after allowing four earned runs in 4.1 innings pitched with four strikeouts.