LEXINGTON, Va. - Due to torrential rain that moved through the Lexington area during the contest, the opener of the VMI/Winthrop Big South baseball series was suspended in the fifth inning. The game will be resumed Saturday afternoon at 4 p.m., with the originally scheduled Saturday contest to follow.

During Friday's action, Winthrop held a 4-0 lead after scoring two runs in both the second and fifth innings. RBI singles by Michael Patrick and Leighton Daniels in the second inning, as well as an RBI single by Chad Smith and a run-scoring double by Matt Lobacz, had staked WU to the advantage. The Eagles had also seen pitcher Matt Pierpont hold the Keydets to just one hit over the opening 4 1/3 frames, with Nick Dwyer doubling as the final batter before the rain came. 

The game was delayed at 7:19 p.m. with Dwyer at second, Ray Lopez at the plate and a 1-1 count, and was paused for one hour, five minutes before the suspension was announced. It is VMI baseball's first suspended game since the 2011 season. 

BROADCAST PLAN FOR SATURDAY: The VMI Sports Radio Network currently plans to broadcast Saturday's originally scheduled game (game two) on AM 1450 WREL, VMIKeydets.com audio and the Big South Network presented by State Farm. There will not be a broadcast of the resumption of the series opener. The broadcast schedule for Sunday remains unchanged.