FAU Baseball Clinches Opening C-USA Series With Late Flurry

MEDIA CONTACT: Jonathan Fraysure, jfraysur@fau.edu

BOCA RATON, Fla. – (March 16, 2019) – Through four and a half innings, the Florida Atlantic University baseball team trailed Rice, 5-1. Three home innings and 11 hits and runs later, FAU had set season highs in both those categories, and have taken the first two against the visiting Owls to clinch the home series – and first Conference USA set – of the season. NOTE: Sunday’s finale start time has already been changed, it will begin at 11 a.m. ahead of forecasted inclement weather.

Quotable

Head Coach John McCormack:

“Down 4-0 and then 5-1, and guys just kept battling and battling against a really good pitcher. That was a really big-time inning where we scored six, and we were able to score three the next inning … Just a really good job, proud of the guys.”

The Turning Point

Rice (8-13, 0-2 C-USA) scored four in the first, and again, led 5-1 heading to the bottom of the fifth. After an out to start, the FAU (13-7, 2-0 C-USA) rally began when Eric Rivera and Gunnar Lambert both walked. After a wild pitch, Francisco Urbaez lined a single up the middle to plate them both. Andru Summerall and Pedro Pages notched back-to-back singles to load the bases, and a Bobby Morgensen sacrifice fly cut it to a one-run game. With two out, Joe Montes doubled to right-center to give FAU the lead, and pinch-hitter Mitchell Hartigan pushed in another with a single for a six-run inning to make it 7-5.

The Finish

FAU scored three in the sixth (a Rivera solo home run, plus RBI singles by Pages and Montes) and two more in the seventh (a Lambert RBI double and Summerall run-scoring single). Reliever Hunter Cooley pitched a scoreless fifth and sixth to pick up the victory, and Dylan Carter and Jacob Josey closed out the league win, FAU’s seventh straight victory overall (and 10th win in the last 11).

The Arms

·         Mike Ruff struck out five in four innings, and gave up just one run in his final three innings, before giving way to Cooley

·         In his first relief appearance since the first series of the year, Cooley allowed only one hit and had three strikeouts

·         Carter had a scoreless eighth, then gave way to Josey after a 25-minute rain delay. After eight innings at shortstop, Josey recorded two K’s and ended the game with a groundout

The Bats

·         The 12 runs and 16 hits were each one more than FAU posted exactly two weeks ago against Monmouth

·         Three Owls – Urbaez, Pages and Montes – had three hits. Urbaez and Montes each drove in three runs; Rivera and Lambert both scored three times

·         For Urbaez, that marked his first three-hit game at FAU, and raised his season average to .422

·         Rivera now has 12 multi-hit games in the Owls’ first 20, has a nine-game hitting streak, and is at an even .400

What’s Next

Sunday, once more, will start at 11 a.m., as FAU looks for a possible sweep. Nick Swan will start for the home Owls; Jackson Parthasarathy goes for the visitors. Buy 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.