April 13, 2007

Final Stats

TRUMBULL, CT - Senior Jason Maiella and junior Frank Bainer each drove in three runs to help the Sacred Heart University baseball team overcome five errors in the field and defeat Fairleigh Dickinson University 14-8 in a Northeast Conference game Friday night.

The Pioneers jumped out to a 4-0 lead in the first inning. Senior Bobby McKee smashed a two-run homer in the inning, his first of the season. Maiella drove in another with a double and later scored on a balk by starter Stephen Eng for FDU.

SHU, 11-16 and 2-3, extended the lead to 7-0 with three more runs in the third. Maiella drove in the first with a sacrifice fly with the bases loaded, after the Pioneers started the inning with three straight singles. Junior Frank Bainer plated another with an RBI single and senior Rob Tencza drove in the third with a sac fly.

Pioneer starter Chris Howard breezed through the first six inning tossing zeros. FDU, 7-21 and 2-3, got back in the game with three unearned runs in the seventh inning, helped out by a Howard throwing error with two outs. One run scored on the Howard error and another on an RBI single by Jeff Vincent. The third Knight run scored on an error by SHU third baseman, Tencza.

Maiella got on back for SHU in the bottom of the inning with another sacrifice fly to make it 8-3. Bainer followed with an RBI single and later scored the third run of the inning on a wild pitch.

Fairleigh Dickinson closed the gap to 10-8 in the top of the eighth inning with five unearned runs on just two hits off Pioneer reliever George Lamar, thanks to a pair of Pioneer errors. Vincente-Alexander Medina had one of the two Knight hits in the frame and drove in two runs.

Sacred Heart put the game away in the bottom of the frame with four more runs on two bases loaded walks, a wild pitch and an RBI ground out by shortstop Phil Tantillo.

Howard picked up the win to move to 5-3 on the season. Junior Chris Barthel earned his third save of the season with 1 1/3 innings of scoreless relief.

Eng took the loss for FDU and fell to 1-5.

The two teams will play a doubleheader tomorrow at the Ballpark at Harbor Yard starting at 2 p.m. The games called be heard on the Pioneer Radio Network at sacredheartpioneers.com.