MEDIA CONTACT: Jonathan Fraysure
561-430-7148, [email protected]
BOCA RATON, Fla. – (March 8, 2019) – The Florida Atlantic University baseball team scored six runs in their first three at-bats, and coupled with a nine-inning effort by starter Blake Sanderson, took the opener of a three-game set against Northeastern on Friday night, 7-4.
Quotable
Head Coach John McCormack:
“I thought it was a good win. Friday night, Sandy (Blake Sanderson) does his thing again, pitched really well. We had a decision there in the eighth, do we let go back out for the ninth? I thought he earned it, give him a chance to get a complete game … (and) I thought our offensive approach in the first three or four innings was really good.”
The Turning Point
The Owls (7-6) loaded the bases in each of the first two innings and came out with four runs, and a Joe Montes opposite-field homer in the third ballooned things out to 6-0. A couple of sterling defensive plays by Northeastern (5-7) kept it from being worse, including in the second, when a likely grand slam by Francisco Urbaez was pulled back in on a catch over the fence by leftfielder Corey DiLoreto.
The Finish
Though the Huskies had two-run homers in the sixth and ninth (sandwiched around some insurance in the FAU eighth when Gunnar Lambert notched his second RBI of the night), Sanderson was able to finish out an efficient 108-pitch effort for the Owls’ first complete game in over a year.
The Arm
· Sanderson threw four perfect innings (first, fourth, fifth and seventh), and had 10 pitches or less in five frames (first, second, third, seventh and ninth)
· He struck out five and walked zero, and six of the eight scattered NU hits were singles
· Friday marked the first complete game by an FAU pitcher since Jake Miednik last season (March 2, 2018, pitching all eight innings in a 2-1 loss on the road at Oregon), and the first CG victory since Alex House the year prior (April 14, 2017, defeating Marshall at home, 7-3)
The Bats
· Eric Rivera had three hits in his first three at-bats, all coming in the first three innings
· Montes, in addition to his first home run of 2019, added a single
· Lambert also had two hits, reached on a walk, and had two RBI
· Pedro Pages was on three times, including two walks
· The runs batted in in the first inning came on an Andru Summerall fielder’s choice, an Urbaez groundout, and a two-out double by Jared DeSantolo
· The run in the second came when Lambert singled in Mitchell Hartigan; Lambert’s RBI single in the eighth scored Wilfredo Alvarez
What’s Next
The second of three against the Huskies goes off at 4 p.m. Saturday, with the starting pitching matchup slated to be Mike Ruff against Northeastern’s Brandon Dufault. Tickets are available 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
