By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Insider
            This Baylor baseball team has a little moxie about it. 
            After sweeping Saturday's doubleheader with a pair of come-from-behind 8-5 wins on a miserable day when temperatures dipped into the 30s, the No. 12/15 Bears (4-0) finished off a four-game season-opening sweep of Holy Cross (0-4) by taking Sunday's finale, 6-1. 
            "I was just really happy how we played today," said coach Steve Rodriguez, who picked up his 99^thwin at Baylor, improving go 99-73, "because you come out, you've already won three games, the wind is blowing straight in, conditions aren't ideal for baseball. And we were able to get some runners on baseball and execute some things. I'm really happy with how our guys performed today."
            Freshman right-hander Anderson Needham had an impressive collegiate debut, retiring the first nine batters he faced and taking a no-hitter into the fifth inning. But, after striking out the first two batters, he gave up back-to-back hits and walked the next two to force in the Crusaders' only run of the game. 
            "Needham has a chance to be really good," Rodriguez said. "We just know that if he can control that strike zone a little bit better, he's going to be something special to watch."
            While he was nervous in the bullpen, "just getting ready for it," Needham said once he got on the mound and threw that first strike, "everything sort of came together and started feeling great."
            Davion Downey, who hit a sizzling .538 in the four-game series, said he expected Needham to be nervous at the beginning of the game. "But, he came out and proved people wrong, especially me. When Anderson is on, he's hard to touch."
            Scoreless through the first three frames, Downey got things going for the Bears in the fourth with a leadoff double down the right-field line. After a sac bunt by Ryan Bertelsman, Downey scored the game's first run on Cole Haring's line-drive single to left. 
            Haring stole second and third, then Josh Bissonette delivered a two-out RBI single to right to give Baylor the early 2-0 lead. 
            When Needham's control issues got the best of him in the top of the fifth, lefty Ryan Leckich came out of the bullpen with the bases loaded and won a nine-pitch battle with Austin Masel to retire the Holy Cross centerfielder on a grounder to second base for the final out. 
            "I think he might have gotten a little tired," Rodriguez said of Needham, who threw 81 pitches in 4 2/3 innings. "Our goal was for him to get us through four or five innings. He went through four and was still feeling pretty good, so we rolled him out there for the fifth. They got a couple cheap hits, and then he kind of lost his command a little bit. I was really happy with how he performed in the conditions that we were in."
            Clinging to a one-run lead, the Bears finally knocked out Holy Cross starter Pat McGowan in the seventh. Nick Loftin had a one-out single, went to second on a wild pitch and scored on a Davis Wendzel double that sliced away from rightfielder Ben Malgeri. 
            Downey greeted reliever Frank Spano with a towering shot down the right-field line that just barely cleared the wall for his first homer of the season and fifth of his career. 
            "As soon as I hit it, I looked up and was like, "That's going out,''' he said. "The whole approach today for me was just trying to hit balls hard on the ground or line drives in the gap. And I don't know, I just pulled that one out, and it happened."
            Rodriguez said it's "really impressive . . . when you can turn the wind around like that."
            "When he hit it, I was like, 'Aw, man, not today.' Then, it kept going, and I'm like, 'That's going a long way.' It just kept going, and I saw the guy get to the track, and I'm like, 'He better not catch this thing.' It had enough to get out, but that's what that young man has in him. He has some power that's pretty impressive. I just love watching him play."
            Baylor tacked on a run in the eighth when Bissonette singled through the right side, moved to third on freshman catcher Kyle Harper's double just inside the third-base bag and scored on Richard Cunningham's RBI groundout. 
            After Harper's first collegiate hit, Rodriguez retrieved the ball from home-plate umpire Will Thornwell. 
            "First hits are awesome," Rodriguez said. "I love when guys get their first hit, because it's something really special. That's the one hit they will always remember."
            Leckich picked up his fourth career win, tossing 2 1/3 scoreless innings with two strikeouts. Zach Buck had a sharp single to center for the only hit off Leckich, but was thrown out by Harper on a strike-'em-out, throw-'em-out double play to end the sixth. 
            Playing their fifth game in five days, the Bears will travel to face Texas State (2-1) at 6 p.m. Tuesday in San Marcos, before returning home for a three-game series against Cornell (0-0) next weekend at Baylor Ballpark. 

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

WACO, Texas – No. 12/15 Baylor baseball finished off a four-game sweep of the Holy Cross Crusaders with a 6-1 win Sunday afternoon at Baylor Ballpark. 
 
Sophomore outfielder Davion Downey turned in a 2-for-3 performance with a two-run home run to see the Bears improve to 4-0 on the young season.
 
The Bears struck first in the bottom of the fourth inning when Cole Haring drove in Downey with a single for the game's first run. Josh Bissonette added an RBI knock later in the inning to push the score to 2-0. 
 
The Crusaders (0-4) scored their only run of the game in the fifth inning off a bases loaded walk surrendered by Baylor starter Anderson Needham. 
 
The freshman right-hander Needham took the hill for the first time in his collegiate career and gave the Bears 4.2 quality innings with six strikeouts. He allowed just the one run on two hits and walked four batters.
 
Baylor hung a three-spot on the scoreboard in the bottom of the seventh inning after four batters strung together hits. Nick Loftin singled and later scored on a Davis Wendzel double, Downey homered, and Ryan Bertelsman picked up his only base hit of the day.
 
There was more in store for the Bears in the eighth as Bissonette tallied his second knock, Kyle Harper recorded his first career hit, a double, and Richard Cunningham picked up an RBI with a groundout to make it 6-1. 
 
The bullpen duo of lefty Ryan Leckich and Luke Boyd bridged the way for Loftin to take over on the mound in the ninth. In his third career pitching appearance, Loftin threw a scoreless inning and struck out one batter.
 
The win completes Baylor's four-game sweep of Holy Cross, the Bears' first four-game sweep since 2011 when they defeated Louisiana Tech in all four games. 
 

NOTES
*Baylor improves to 99-73 under fourth-year head coach Steve Rodriguez. Coach Rod will go for win No. 100 Tuesday night at Texas State.
 
*The opening weekend series sweep is the Bears' first since defeating Niagara in three games on Feb. 17-18, 2017. Baylor started the 2017 season 10-0 and won 15 of their first 17.
 
*This is Baylor's first four-game series sweep since taking all four from Louisiana Tech on March 10-13, 2011.
 
*The last time the Bears opened a season 4-0 was in 2017 when they started 10-0.
 
*Freshman RHP Anderson Needham made his collegiate debut, tossing 4.2 innings and racking up six strikeouts. He only allowed one run on two hits and walked four batters.
 
*Nick Loftin made his third-career appearance on the mound, throwing a scoreless ninth inning and picking up one punchout.
 
*Davion Downey hit his first home run of the season and fifth of his career.
 
*Kyle Harper recorded his first career hit and first career caught stealing.
 
*Cole Haring stole two bases, a career best.
 
*Baylor was hit-by-a-pitch twice today, moving the season total to 12 on the season.
 
*Josh Bissonette extended his on-base streak to 11 games going back to last season.
 
*Loftin extended his on-base streak to 11 games going back to last season.
 
*Downey has a seven-game on-base streak and six-game hit streak going back to last season. 
 
*Loftin and Downey recorded their third multi-hit games of the season and Bissonette tallied his second multi-hit game of the year.

STAT OF THE DAY
.538 – Davion Downey raised his batting average to .538 after his 2-for-3 day at the plate.

QUOTE OF THE DAY
On making his collegiate debut…
"I was definitely more nervous maybe in the bullpen just leading up to it, just getting ready for it but when I stepped out on the field and threw that first strike, everything just came together and started feeling great."
- Baylor freshman RHP Anderson Needham

WHAT'S NEXT
The Bears will travel to San Marcos for a Tuesday night tilt with Texas State at 6:00 p.m. 
 
For tickets, visit: https://baylorbears.com/sports/2018/9/11/tickets.aspx. For updates on the program follow @baylorbaseball on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.