CHARLOTTE, N.C. – (April 6, 2019) – For the fourth straight weekend, the Florida Atlantic University baseball team has posted conference wins on both Friday and Saturday, beating Charlotte in 13 innings in a come-from-behind 10-6 win on Saturday night to clinch another league series.
Quotable
Head Coach John McCormack:
“A fantastic win, the guys played well, very proud of them. (Zach) Schneider was stellar in five innings of relief. The offense broke out in the top of the 13th with a home run and a big two-out single. It was a total team effort today, a good day for us.”
The Turning Point
After FAU (22-9, 10-1 Conference USA) scored four in the fifth for a 5-2 lead, Charlotte (12-17-1, 3-7-1 C-USA) scored four of their own in the sixth to regain the advantage. The Owls then tied it with two outs in the eighth when Pedro Pages rapped his fourth hit of the game into leftfield to score Mitchell Hartigan. The 49ers put the first runner on in the bottom of the ninth, and advanced him to third with just one out, but Zach Schneider wriggled out of the jam to send it to extras.
The Finish
It was dueling zeroes in the 10th, 11th and 12th, before the Owls broke through in the 13th. With one out, Francisco Urbaez roped a no-doubt home run to left, and both Pages and Summerall were hit by a pitch. Charlotte turned to the bullpen and got a second out, but a fielding error loaded the bases and extended the inning, allowing Richie Nizza to single in two for some cushion. Another run scored on another error, and Schneider worked around a one-out single and error in the bottom half to close out five innings of shutout ball.
The Arms
· Mike Ruff struck out seven in 5 2/3 innings in a no-decision
· Three relievers combined for 7 1/3 scoreless frames. Dylan Carter was first, then Jon Jon Kostantis got the last out of the seventh and worked into the ninth
· Schneider allowed just three hits and didn’t walk a batter in five. He struck out four and threw 80 percent of his 65 pitches for strikes
The Bats
· Pages was 4-for-6, matching his career best in hits and falling just one short with four RBI while scoring twice
· He had a single in the third, a run-scoring single in the third, a two-run double in the sixth and the tying RBI in the eighth
· Urbaez’s seventh home run was his third hit of the day, 3-for-6, and he added two runs scored and two RBI
· With two hits, towards the Owls’ season high of 18, were Eric Rivera, Hartigan, Bobby Morgensen, and Nizza off the bench
What’s Next
The finale begins at noon on Sunday, with the Owls going for their third conference sweep. Next Friday, April 12, the team hosts Louisiana Tech, and for tickets, call 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.
