ATHENS, Ga. – (June 2, 2019) – The Florida Atlantic University baseball team was eliminated from the Athens Regional on Sunday in a 13-0 loss to Georgia, wrapping the season with a 41-21 record and taking home the Conference USA regular season championship along the way.
Quotable
Head Coach John McCormack:
“Congratulations to Georgia. We knew we had to play a clean game (against the) No. 4 national seed and we got a zero in the first and I was hoping we could get some runs. I’m sure they were under some pressure, but that guy (Georgia pitcher Tim Elliott) pitched fantastic. He kept us off-balance all day and then their offense capitalized. I thought Mike (Ruff) did okay, made three or four bad pitches and they capitalized on him, and then it just kind of got away from us and Georgia got it rolling. Congratulations to them.”
The Turning Point
Georgia (46-16) got the scoring started in the third, when with two outs, Aaron Schunk hit the first of his two home runs on the day, a two-run shot. The Bulldogs added three more on another home run in the fourth.
The Finish
As his Bulldog bats staked him to the lead, Tim Elliott held FAU (41-21) to two hits – and baserunners – on the day, just one over the minimum. Andru Summerall had a clean one-out single to left in the fourth (but was erased on a double play), and Wilfredo Alvarez drilled a two-out double down the rightfield line in the sixth. But that’s all the Owls would get. Elliott retired the final nine in order for the complete game win.
The Arms
· Mike Ruff took the loss to finish his junior year at 6-5
· Following Vince Coletti, in his final appearance as an Owl (the 35th of his senior year, fourth on the all-time list), Eric Keating threw a perfect 1-2-3 ninth
· In addition to Coletti, senior pitchers wrapping up their Owl careers are Jordan Poore, Blake Sanderson, Zach Schneider and Nick Swan
The Bats
· Summerall finished his redshirt sophomore year at .295, a career best and 82 points higher than his debut season
· Alvarez notched his eighth double and finished his first season with the squad with a .320 average (one of seven regulars above the .300 plateau)
· Those two should be back next season as building blocks for 2020, but the program bids farewell to five hitters that all made their final appearance in an Owl uniform on Sunday: Diamond Johnson, Gunnar Lambert, Joe Montes, Richie Nizza and Jacob Pino
What’s Next
The 2019 campaign is in the books, but the Owls reached the 40-plus-win plateau in back-to-back years for the first time since 2003-04 (and the first time in John McCormack’s tenure). For the seniors and potentially some draft-eligible juniors, the 2019 MLB Draft begins Monday with the first two rounds (78 picks, including some compensatory and competitive balance selections), and continues into Tuesday (rounds 3-10, starting at 1 p.m.) and Wednesday (rounds 11-40, beginning at noon).
– FAUSports.com –
Florida Atlantic University Athletics:
FAU Athletics is comprised of 21 intercollegiate teams involving 450 student-athletes that compete in baseball, basketball, cross country, football, golf, soccer, softball, swimming and diving, tennis, indoor and outdoor track, volleyball, beach volleyball, cheer and dance. The Owls are a NCAA Division I-A (FBS) institution and compete in Conference USA and the Coastal Collegiate Sports Association (CCSA) (beach volleyball, men’s swimming). The Owls have been playing football since 2001 and are a perfect 3-0 in bowl games, the most recent being a 50-3 victory over Akron in the 2017 Cheribundi Tart Cherry Boca Raton Bowl. The dance team finished its 2014 season No. 8, nationally. FAU cheer won a national championship in 2016.
About Florida Atlantic University:
Florida Atlantic University, established in 1961, officially opened its doors in 1964 as the fifth public university in Florida. Today, the University, with an annual economic impact of $6.3 billion, serves more than 30,000 undergraduate and graduate students at sites throughout its six county service region in southeast Florida. FAU’s world-class teaching and research faculty serves students through 10 colleges: the Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, the College of Business, the College for Design and Social Inquiry, the College of Education, the College of Engineering and Computer Science, the Graduate College, the Harriet L. Wilkes Honors College, the Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine, the Christine E. Lynn College of Nursing and the Charles E. Schmidt College of Science. FAU is ranked as a High Research Activity institution by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. The University is placing special focus on the rapid development of critical areas that form the basis of its strategic plan: Healthy aging, biotech, coastal and marine issues, neuroscience, regenerative medicine, informatics, lifespan and the environment. These areas provide opportunities for faculty and students to build upon FAU’s existing strengths in research and scholarship. For more information, visit www.fau.edu.
