The Diamond Hawks surged ahead in the Colonial Athletic Association baseball standings this weekend by taking two of three games with the visiting Towson Tigers. UNCW (19-23, 10-10), has now won five of its seven series in conference play this season and are now tied for sixth in the conference.

The Seahawks are now in good position to make the CAA Tournament in May, which they will be playing host to once again. Towson (15-21, 7-10), meanwhile, will have a lot of work to do if they want to get into the six-team field as CAA play enters the home stretch this season.

UNCW cruised past Towson in the first game of the series on Friday (8-0) thanks to a four-hit complete game shutout by freshman pitcher Daniel Cropper (4-4). It was the first shutout by a Seahawk freshman starter in over two decades, as Cropper used his low- to mid-90 MPH fastball and darting curveballs to confuse the Towson hitters, resulting in eight strikeouts.

On the offensive end, big days from Steve Halford, Grayson Evans, Daniel Hargrave and Jonathan Batts produced all eight of the Seahawk runs. Evans homered in the second and drove in three runs, and Hargrave collected four hits, while Batts and Halford each notched a pair of hits and two RBIs apiece to give the Seahawks an easy win.

The same effort seen on Friday was not present on Saturday’s matinee contest, as UNCW lost its 12th one-run game of the season by the final count of 6-5. Towson received a strong outing from senior starter Matt Holley (3-0), while light-hitting second baseman Gary Helmick was not retired all game and scored four of Towson’s runs.

Meanwhile, Jeff Hatcher (4-4) pitched a solid six innings for the Hawks but was not given enough support by his teammates, who allowed two unearned runs to score due to errors in the field. UNCW rallied in the ninth to cut the score from 6-3 to 6-5, but Nate Hall left two runners on to end the game. The Seahawks had the bases loaded twice during the game with just one out but only produced three runs total in those situations.

On Sunday’s rubber match, UNCW came back strong to take the series victory. UNCW opened up a 4-0 lead in the second thanks to RBI singles by Hall and Jason Appel as well as sacrifice flies by Halford and Evans. Two more runs scored in the fourth on RBI singles by Evans and Halford gave the Seahawks a 6-2 lead.

Meanwhile, Seahawk starter Bradley Holt (4-5) cruised until the Tigers struck with two runs in the fourth on a two-run single by left fielder Kevin Collins; however, the Seahawks got effective bullpen work from Cody Dickens and Andrew Morgan to shut down the Tigers and claim the victory by the final score of 9-4.

The Seahawks will take on William & Mary, with whom they are tied with in the standings for the all-important sixth place before returning home May 4 for a three-game set with Northeastern.