FLORENCE, SC – Junior right-hander Jeffrey Stoner held seventh-ranked Lander University to two hits while striking out a season-high equaling 12 batters as Francis Marion University claimed a tidy 3-1 win in the opener of Saturday's (March 9) Peach Belt Conference baseball doubleheader.  Senior catcher Jeff May singled, doubled, and drove in three runs to lead Lander to a 9-2 win in the second contest and to a split of the twinbill.

Francis Marion (9-7, 5-4) will play host to non-conference foe Benedict College on Wednesday evening at 7 p.m. Lander leaves Florence with a 17-4 overall record and a PBC-best 10-2 mark.

Despite throwing 134 pitches, Stoner (3-0) dispatched the Bearcats in an hour and 41 minutes, one of the quickest games in FMU history.  He allowed only a one-out single in the fourth and a two-out single in the ninth (to May). He lowered his season earned run average to 1.13 and now has 54 strikeouts in 39.2 innings.

FMU senior centerfielder Jarrod Reed plated senior designated hitter Will Chandler with a run-scoring ground out to short in the last of the second inning. 

Lander knotted the score at 1-1 in the fourth with an unearned run.  A two-out passed ball on a strikeout of May by Stoner allowed Patrick Grady to scamper home.

The Patriots plated single runs in the sixth and seven innings.  Senior third baseman Stephen Tarkenton walked with two outs in the sixth, stole second base, and came home on Chandler's RBI single.  Another two-out RBI, this time on a single to right by junior shortstop Michael Wilson accounted for the seventh-inning tally.

Chandler, junior outfielder Casey Gebhardt, and senior catcher Jacob Golliday all had two hits for Francis Marion.

Lander starter Chess Malone (4-1) surrendered nine hits and the three runs, while fanning three and walking one in a complete-game effort.

In the second contest, Lander took a 4-0 advantage in the fourth inning.  FMU trimmed the deficit in half with a two-run homer to center field by Chandler in the bottom of the fourth.

It was the Patriots' first home run of the season at Sparrow Stadium and only the second in the brief history of the new ballpark.

Lander quickly responded with four runs in its next at bat and added an insurance run in the sixth inning.

FMU senior starter Don Sandifer (2-3), the first of six Patriot hurlers, allowed four runs on six hits in four frames.

Bearcat junior lefty Logan Pemberton (5-0) went six innings, allowed the two runs on four hits, and struck out two.

Tarkenton was 2-for-4 in the second contest.  FMU senior first baseman Rhodes Dickerson had a hit in both games to run his hitting streak to nine games.

In addition to May's two hits, Grady, Colby Painter, and Chris Hyatt all pounded out two hits for the Bearcats in game two.