April 19, 2006

Box Score

UNIVERSITY OF RICHMOND, Va. - Richmond Baseball outscored its second-straight opponent Wednesday at Pitt Field, topping the Liberty Flames, 12-11, winning four of its last five. The Spiders, now 14-23 overall, upped their team batting average to a season-best .286 by garnering 15 hits on the evening, erasing two Flame leads in the contest. Liberty fell to 29-10 overall with the loss.

Liberty jumped out to a 3-0 lead off freshman starter Kyle Leith. The Flames recorded six total hits off the Naples, Fla., native through his three innings of work, and pushed four total across on the righthander, three of which were earned. The Spiders erased the three-run lead in the bottom of the second by scoring seven times on eight hits and one error. RBI-singles from senior Andrew Justice and junior Matt McKenna pushed two runs across. Freshman Cameron Brown, who finished with three driven in on the day, pushed two across with a single, after senior Ben Zeskind sent his third homer in the last four games over the rightfield wall for a two-run shot.

After scoring one more off Leith in the third to make the Spider lead, 7-4, Liberty connected on a grand slam off junior reliever Lane Holby in the fourth to take an 8-7 lead. The righthander eventually picked up the win by working three innings, allowing four runs on three hits and three walks while fanning one.

Richmond retook the lead in the fourth by scoring three runs on just one hit. A run-scoring groundout by Brown and an infield-single from Justice plated two, while the third run came across on a strikeout play by sophomore Joe Mahoney. After Mahoney swung and missed at strike three, the Flames' catcher dropped the ball and made an errant throw to first, allowing freshman Victor Croglio to score on the play from third.

While Holby surrendered just one hit in the fifth and sixth, the Spiders added two more in the fifth for an 11-8 lead. Junior Anthony Sandstrom drove in McKenna on a single up the middle and sophomore Ryan Metzroth recorded his first RBI of the season on a single up the middle.

Freshman Josh Horn relieved Holby in the seventh and gave up three runs on three hits and one walk, but got out of the inning on a superb play from Zeskind in centerfield. Liberty's Chad Miller drove a ball to the right-center gap with two outs and a runner at first. Zeskind cut the ball off at the wall and fired a rope to Croglio who relayed it on to Brown at third base to get Miller by two steps for the third out.

The Spiders stranded three in the seventh and one more in the eighth, but senior Wyatt Stewart came on in the top of the eighth and did not allow a run on one hit and three walks. The righthander fanned two and stranded four to earn his first career save, preserving the Richmond win, 12-11.

Next up for the Spiders is an Atlantic 10 home series against Duquesne, beginning at 3 p.m. Friday, April 21. Richmond and the Dukes will continue the three-game set into the weekend with a 1 p.m. start on Saturday, April 22, and a noon first pitch Sunday, April 23.

Game Notes:
-- Senior Ben Zeskind's homerun in the second marked his third in the last four games and fourth in the last six.
-- Senior Wyatt Stewart logged his first career save with two innings of scoreless relief.
-- The Spider bullpen has garnered a save in each of the last two wins.
-- Every starter in the Spider lineup recorded at least one hit, helping Richmond's team batting average increase to a season-best .286.
-- Sophomore Ryan Metzroth drove in his first run of the season with an RBI-single in the fifth.
-- Richmond has now won four of its last five.