DUE WEST - Kevin Childs blasted two home runs Tuesday afternoon to lead the Lander baseball team to an 11-3 non-conference victory over rival Erskine College at Grier Field.
Lander improves to 20-16 overall, while Erskine dips to 24-14.
The Bearcats' Darrin Tew (2-1) earned the win after striking out eight and allowing three earned runs on seven hits in 6.1 innings pitched.
Erskine's Chase Corn suffered the loss afer striking out four, walking one and allowing four earned runs on seven hits in 3.1 innings of work.
AJ Nunziato gave the Bearcats a 1-0 lead in the first inning after scoring on a Jordan Owens RBI single to left field.
The Fleet came back to tied the game at 1-all in the bottom of the inning when Brian Laznik doubled, then scored on John Bolding's single.
Lander went back up 2-1 in the second on Jacob Tisdale's RBI single that plated Childs, and Patrick Grady's sacrifice foul sent Cody McElhaney.
After Erskine cut the lead to 3-2 in the second when Zach McCarthy scored on Phillip Herring's right field double, Lander exploded for five more runs in the fourth. Childs led off with a solo homer to right field, McElhaney scored on an error, Jacob Tisdale's RBI single sent Jeff May home, Tisdale scored on Nunziato's groundout and Lunde's RBI plated Grady.
The Flying Fleet trimmed the lead to 8-3 in the sixth when Casey Winckowski's RBI single drove in Smith.
Lander upped the lead to 10-3 in the seventh on Childs' second homer of the day, a two-run blast that scored Owens, who reached on a single.
The Bearcats added one more run in the eighth as Lunde reached on an error, advanced to second on a groundout and later scored on an Erskine error.
For Lander, May batted 3-for-4 with one run scored, while Owens was 2-for-5 witn one run and one RBI, Childs 2-for-4 with three runs and three RBI, and Tisdale 2-for-4 with one run and two RBI.