LAKELAND, Fla. – The St. John Fisher College baseball team wrapped up its spring trip and the RussMatt Central Florida Invitational with a split as the Cardinals fell to nationally-ranked Rowan University before outlasting Salve Regina at historic Henley Field. With the split, Fisher will return north with a 3-5 overall record.
No. 10 ROWAN 11, FISHER 5
After falling behind by seven runs through four innings of play, Fisher chipped away in the top of the fifth with three runs on three hits.
Noah Campanelli led off the inning with a single to right and moved to second when
Michael Beimel followed suit with an opposite field hit of his own. With two on and no outs,
Brian Norsen lifted a double to left that plated a run before
Nick Lemire pushed a run across with a groundout. With two runs already in,
Luke Duffy worked a walk with the bases loaded to make it 7-3 before the Profs could retire the side.
Rowan would return the favor in the bottom of the fifth with two more runs to make it 9-3, but the Cardinals countered in the top of the sixth when Lemire and
Evan Bowers each drove in a run to make it a four-run affair.
Trailing 9-5, Rowan took advantage of an infield error by the Cardinals and scored a run in the next half inning before tacking on another run in the bottom of the eighth en route to the 11-5 win.
Alec Teska (0-2) was hit with the loss after allowing nine runs (five earned) over 4.2 innings. He finished with five strikeouts and surrendered 10 hits in all before being relieved by
Russell Dunlap who threw the final 3.1 innings and yielded two runs (one earned) on just one hit. Dunlap accounted for four strike outs and gave up just one walk.
FISHER 2, SALVE REGINA 1 (10 INNINGS)
Both pitching staffs looked sharp early as neither let in a run over the first four innings. After throwing up a zero in the top of the fifth, Fisher struck first in the bottom of the frame when Norsen led off with a solo shot over the left field fence to make it a 1-0 contest.
The game remained a one-score affair until the top of the seventh when the Seahawks produced a leadoff homer of their own to knot things up at 1-1.
Following a 1-2-3 top of the eighth, Fisher had the go-ahead run at second after
Jack Kelleher ripped a double, but the Seahawks got the next two hitters to strike out to end the threat and bring up the top of the ninth.
After a scoreless ninth, Fisher retired the side without incident in the top of the 10th before Lemire singled to leadoff the home half of the inning. With the winning run on base, Bowers dropped a sacrifice bunt to move Lemire into scoring position before
Jimmy McCardle stepped in and smacked a game-winning single up the gut to lift Fisher to a 2-1 victory.
Fisher used three pitchers in the win beginning with
Michael Poirier who went 3.0 scoreless innings and allowed just two hits to go along with two strikeouts.
Ryan O'Mara pitched 6.0 brilliant innings where he let in just one run on two hits before
Logan Persse (1-1) earned the win after throwing a scoreless inning of work.
The Cardinals will be back in action at 3 p.m. on Wednesday when they travel to Henrietta to take on the RIT Tigers in a non-conference nine-inning tilt.
