KISSIMMEE, Fla. - Suffolk baseball fell behind early and the distance was too much for the Rams to make up as they lost to the Tigers of Rochester Institute of Technology Wednesday night at Osceola Heritage Park at the RussMatt Central Florida Invitational.
THE BASICS
SCORE: Suffolk 6 | RIT 13
RECORDS: Suffolk (3-4) | RIT (3-4)
HOW IT HAPPENED
Suffolk's scoring started early as lead-off hitter Rich Gilbride worked his way around the bags on a base-hit, steal and balk before scoring on Will Hopkins' triple to the right-center gap. The Rams' hot hitter, Hopkins, who has knocked at least one hit in each of his five appearances at the plate this season, came in on a sac fly from Trevor Lee to make it a 2-0 Suffolk ball game.
RIT's bats started early and often as well with the Tigers going through the order to grab a 5-2 lead on five hits and one Rams' fielding error.
The Rams made up ground in the second with a pair of runs. In a marathon at bat, Gilbride placed the ball in fair territory down the left field line and it rolled into corner allowing Nik San Antonio to turn on the wheels and round the bags to make it a RBI double for Suffolk's shortstop. Gilbride came in once again courtesy of Hopkins, this time with a base hit up the middle to trim the deficit to one, 5-4.
The Tigers looked to regain a larger distance in the home half of the second and had a chance with runners in the corner and just one out, but Worth Walrod fanned back-to-back batters, both looking, to keep the one-run game intact.
After a scoreless first half of the third, RIT rattled off six straight hits including three doubles to extend its advantage to 9-4 with just two outs. As Walrod's day came to an end on the bump EJ Birch came in and John Mikoliaicyk cleared the ball 330 yards over the left field fence to push to the Tigers cushion to nine, 13-4.
Suffolk was unable to get its offense going until the top of the eighth. The Rams trimmed the margin down to seven. A 53 ground out by Tommy Shimchak brought in Connor Troio, who reached on a RIT error, to start up the scoring again before Zack Aresty's single to right field that scored San Antonio, who got on with a single of his own.
Despite a double from Troio and a single by Steven Shamnoski, the seven-run distance was too much ground for the Rams to make up and RIT took the 13-6 victory.
PITCHERS PICTURE
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Four different pitchers saw action on the hill for Suffolk with Walrod suffering the setback after giving up 12 runs, 11 earned, on 13 hits and one walk over 2.2 innings.
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Birch relieved Walrod and shoved for 2.1 frames, in which he put together a stat line of one run, two hits, one walk and two Ks.
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Ryan Garton tossed 2.0 innings of scoreless relief, fanning a pair of hitters and letting up just one hit.
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Casey Sulilvan threw 1.0 frame of scoreless action.
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RIT used a number of arms as well with Jon Opalewski earning his first decision behind 2.0 innings of scoreless action in which he gave up just a pair of hits, walked one batter and struck out another.
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Starter Daniel Zeglen went 4.0 frames. He put together a four-run, eight-hit, one-walk, one-strikeout day on the hill.
STATISTICALLY SPEAKING
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Suffolk's 15 hits were off 11 different batters with four producing multi-hit days: Gilbride (2-3), Hopkins (2-3), Rich Giandrea (2-3) and San Antonio (2-3).
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Hopkins registered a pair of RBIs and scored one run himself.
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Gilbrides scored twice and brought in one run.
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Aresty, Lee, and Shimchak each produced one RBI.
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San Antonio crossed home twice, and Troio recorded one run scored as well.
NOTEWORTHY
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Hopkins pushed his hit streak to five with the sophomore producing at least one hit in all five of his appearances this season.
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Timothy McCarthy had his first collegiate at bat.
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Daniel Pooler went to the plate for the first time in his Suffolk career.
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Birch recorded his first collegiate strikeout and finished the day with a pair of Ks.
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Garton saw his first action on the bump in his collegiate campaign.
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Sullivan shoved for the first time in his collegiate career.
POST-GAME PIC
COMING UP
Suffolk has two doubleheaders remaining on its Spring Training trip with the first on the schedule for tomorrow, Thursday, March 14 against Juniata. First pitch of game one is set for 12 p.m. at Lake Myrtle Park in Auburndale, Florida.
