March 7, 2009

Box Score

PRINCESS ANNE, Md. - It would have been hard for the Lafayette baseball team to play better than it did in its opening two games against UMES on Saturday. The Leopards combined for 31 runs, 42 hits and held the Hawks to only five runs and 12 hits as they took both games of the series-opening doubleheader.

Lafayette won the opening game 14-0 and posted a 17-5 victory in the second game to improve to 5-3 on the season. Sophomore Zach Fritz earned the win in the opening game that saw the Leopards finish with 20 hits against UMES pitching. Corey Shea came through with the game two win in which Lafayette recorded 22 hits.

Sophomore Rob Froio had 10 hits in the two games, including a 6-for-6 performance in the final contest. In that game, he also knocked in a game-high six runs while scoring three of his own. Junior Matt Hall had four hits on the afternoon, including two homers in the opening game.

In the series opener, Fritz pitched seven shutout innings of two-hit ball, struck out 10 UMES batters and walked only two. Reliever Joseph Verdon tossed two shutout innings to seal the Lafayette victory.

Six Lafayette batters had two or more hits in the game, led by sophomore Froio's four. Hall went 3-for-5 with two home runs, four RBI and three runs scored. A.J. Miller drove in three runs with a second-inning home run, his first of the season.

The Leopards, who scored runs in five of the nine innings, jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the second inning on Miller's homer to right center.

Lafayette scored two more runs in the fourth on senior Jeff Butler's two-run blast to right field, one in the fifth on Hall's leadoff homer and one in the seventh on a Justin Shepherd RBI single to take a 7-0 lead.

The Leopards erupted for five runs in the top of the eighth. Daniel Bierce and Ian McCutcheon drove in the first two runs with RBI singles before Hall came through with his second round-tripper that scored the final three runs.

Lafayette capped off the scoring with two more runs in the top of the ninth when Froio's triple scored Brian Davila. Adam McMahon sent Froio home with a ground out to shortstop and Verdon got Carl Huber to strike out swinging to end the game, one of his three strikeouts in the game.

The offense kept rolling in the second game as the Leopards pounded out 22 more hits. Lafayette jumped out a 2-0, first-inning lead on a Bierce RBI single and an error on UMES first baseman Pat Hercinger that scored Bierce.

In the second inning, Lafayette tacked on three runs on three hits and another Hawks error. The Leopards made it a 7-0 ballgame in the third with two more runs.

The Hawks (2-9) scraped a run across in the bottom of the third on a Josh Dunham single and added another solo run in the fourth on Michael Guy's RBI double.

The Leopards did not let up, however, scoring three more runs in the fifth inning before exploding for a seven-run sixth inning. In that inning, Lafayette scored its seven runs on six hits and five different players drove in at least one run apiece. The big blow came off the bat of Froio as his triple to left field drove in three runs.

UMES responded with three runs in the bottom of that inning but that was all the scoring they would do for the remainder of the game as freshman reliever John Gentile pitched 1.2 innings of one-hit ball to seal the Lafayette victory.

The Leopards and Seahawks conclude their series with a doubleheader tomorrow beginning at 12 p.m.

Postgame Notes:
- Lafayette is now 4-0 against UMES and has combined for 60 runs in those four games.
- UMES has lost five straight games.
- The 17 runs in the first game matched the most the team scored in a single game last season (17-11 win at Lehigh on April 13).