BOCA RATON, Fla. – (March 29, 2019) – A pitcher’s duel through five opened up on four FIU errors in two late innings to push Florida Atlantic University baseball to a 7-1 win on Friday night to open the Conference USA series at FAU Baseball Stadium.
Quotable
Head Coach John McCormack:
“That’s a really good way to start a weekend off. I thought that Blake (Sanderson) did an excellent job keeping us in the game early and we were able to put some balls in play hard, capitalize on a few of their mistakes. I thought the guys were ready to play. On top of that, we turned (three) double plays, got us out of a couple of innings. Really good job, really proud of the guys.”
The Turning Point
Each team came up with a solo home run in the early going, by Mitchell Hartigan for FAU (17-9, 6-1 C-USA) in the second, and Javier Valdes of FIU (11-15, 2-5 C-USA) in the fourth. With two outs in the home fifth, Francisco Urbaez drew a two-out walk, and came all the way around to score on Andru Summerall’s double down the rightfield line for a lead the Owls would not relinquish.
The Finish
The Valdes home run was all Blake Sanderson would allow across in what would be a seven-inning stint, while three FIU errors in the sixth led to two FAU runs, and the Panthers had another miscue the seventh in a three-run Owl frame (additionally, Bobby Morgensen and Joe Montes had back-to-back RBI singles). Michael Schuler allowed just one hit in the final two innings and was helped out by one of three FAU double plays to close things out.
The Arms / The Gloves
· Sanderson improved to a league-best 6-0
· He scattered just four FIU hits, walked one and struck out four. Besides the home run, only one Panther reached second base against him
· The first double play was a lineout on a leaping catch by Francisco Urbaez in the fifth, doubling off a leadoff single
· The second was Joe Montes to Urbaez to Gunnar Lambert to end the sixth
· And finally, in the eighth, Jacob Josey made a nice play up the middle ranging to his left, stepped on the bag, and threw on to Lambert to end that frame
· Urbaez came up with an amazing play starting the ninth, on a full-out dive in shallow right-center shifting against lefthanded batter Austin Shenton
The Bats
· Six of the Owls’ 10 hits came in the bottom portion of the lineup: two from Morgensen and Montes, one each by Hartigan and Josey
· Eric Rivera also added two hits
· Urbaez had a single, two walks and scored twice
· Hartigan’s home run off FIU ace Logan Allen cleared the scoreboard in rightfield on the fly
· Owl hitters only struck out five times against Allen, who had 61 in 36 2/3 coming in. He hadn’t had less than eight in a start this year
· Also, Allen hadn’t given up an earned run since Feb. 15, and the Owls got two against him Friday
What’s Next
Game two Saturday begins at 4 p.m., with the starting pitching matchup of the Owls’ Mike Ruff and Nick MacDonald of FIU. Get tickets by calling 1-866-FAU-OWLS.
– 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.
