Third baseman Shane Basen (Waxhaw, N.C. / Marvin Ridge HS) went into the "wayback machine," hitting his first homer of the season at the site of his first career home run back in 2010, but the Charlotte rally came up short as the 49ers scored five runs in the final pair of innings in a 12-6 loss to open an Atlantic 10 Conference weekend series at Xavier Friday afternoon at Hayden Field. The 49ers slip to a level 13-13 on the season, 1-3 to start conference play. The Musketeers are 10-15 overall, 1-0 in their first conference game of the year.

Charlotte tied season highs with eight walks and 12 runs allowed in the contest. The Musketeers got three walks and back-to-back doubles in the first off of starter Andrew Smith (Matthews, N.C. / Butler HS) to score three runs in the bottom of the first. The 49ers then allowed an unearned run without a hit to Xavier in the fourth before XU put up a six in the sixth to take a 10-0 lead. Smith was tagged for a season-high eight runs, but five of them went unearned, keeping his season earned run average at 3.59, but dropping this record to 3-4.

Charlotte put together a rally by scoring all six runs in the last three innings.

Charlotte put the first two runners on in the seventh for the first time in the game, later scoring on a Shane Brown (Davidson, N.C. / North Mecklenburg HS) RBI single.

Basen deposited a 1-1 pitch from reliever Nathan Mutsch out to left after a leadoff walk to Tony Montalbano (New Orleans, La.) for two more runs in the eighth before Xavier put two more runs on the board with two outs in the frame.

The 49ers got the bases loaded in the ninth, scoring runs on a pair of RBI singles and a groundout for the game's final margin.

The 49ers racked up 12 hits in the game, tied for their third-highest total of the season, but Charlotte committed four errors, the third time they tied for the most in one game this year.

Xavier starter Vinny Nattoli even his season mark to 3-3 with the win.

Charlotte redshirt freshman Patrick Raley (Franklin, Tenn.) followed up a career-high two hits on Tuesday at USC Upstate with a game-high three hits on Friday. Basen's pair of RBI led Charlotte.

The two teams play game two of the series Saturday at 1 p.m.