MEDIA CONTACT: Jonathan Fraysure jfraysur@fau.edu
BOCA RATON, Fla. – (March 13, 2019) – A four-run second inning by the Owl bats and 6 1/3 innings of one-run relief gave the Florida Atlantic University baseball team a 7-4 win and two-game sweep of Quinnipiac, on Wednesday night. With Rice on the horizon this weekend to open up the Conference USA schedule, the Owls have won eight of their last nine games.
Quotable
Head Coach John McCormack:
“Good Wednesday night game, good win. I thought the relief pitching was really, really good. (Quinnipiac) got off to a good start, scored in the first four innings, I thought DC (Dylan Carter) settled down, (Vince) Coletti was really good, and Zach (Schneider) did what he needed to do and got the save.”
The Turning Point
The Bobcats (4-7) held a 2-1 leading through an inning and a half, but it didn’t take long for the Owls (11-7) to tie, and then take a lead they wouldn’t relinquish. Joe Montes walked to lead off the home second, and came in on a Bobby Morgensen double to right-center. Diamond Johnson’s bunt single forced a bad throw as well, with Morgensen scoring, and Nicholas Toney delivered his first college hit and RBI to plate Johnson. With two outs, a Mitchell Hartigan triple made it a 5-2 Owl advantage.
The Finish
Though Quinnipiac scored once in both the third and fourth, that was all they’d get for the remainder of the game. Nursing the one-run lead, FAU added two two-out runs in the eighth, on another extra-base hit by Hartigan, a double bringing both Richie Nizza and Eric Rivera in. Zach Schneider got two out before two reached in the ninth, and was aided by a diving catch in center by Johnson to seal it.
The Arms/The Gloves
· Eric Keating drew his first college start, and a big help for him was a double play with the bases loaded in the first. Shortstop Jacob Josey took it himself to the second base bag and fired to first to end the inning
· More backup came in the second when Keating’s batterymate, Toney, picked off a runner that strayed too far off second
· With two out in the third, Dylan Carter came on and got a fielder’s choice to strand a runner. He would go 2 1/3 innings, allowing a run on three hits, and picked up his first Owl decision to go to 1-0
· Vince Coletti threw three innings of no-run baseball and had four strikeouts. Both hits against him were retired on the basepaths, as he faced the minimum of nine hitters
· In the seventh, Toney cut down a Bobcat runner trying to steal, and in the eighth, another Josey-started double play (from he to Urbaez to Gunnar Lambert) was another key defensive moment
· Schneider got his fourth straight save in his last four appearances, turning in a scoreless ninth
The Bats
· The Owls tied the game early. After a QU run in the top half, Urbaez hit his team-leading fifth home run with two outs in the home first. He later walked and added a single as well
· Hartigan’s two extra base hits, the triple and double, notched him a career-best three RBI
· Johnson reached three times, with a single, walk and hit-by-pitch
· Rivera scored two runs out of the leadoff slot and extended his hitting streak to seven games with a single in the eighth
What’s Next
It’s FAU and Rice in the first C-USA series of the season this weekend. First pitch Friday is 6:30 p.m., Saturday is 4 p.m. and Sunday begins at noon. Purchase 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.
