Ingui goes 3-for-5 to push average
to .413 on penultimate day of regular season
LaCroix clubbed his third home run of the season at Merrimack on
Friday afternoon.
|
NORTH ANDOVER, Mass. (May
6, 2011) – Freshman first baseman Zach Mathieu (Derry,
N.H.) and sophomore left fielder Nick LaCroix
(Grafton, Mass.) each hit home runs on Friday afternoon,
while junior left-hander Gregg Downing
(Queens, N.Y.) fired eight innings of four-hit ball with
10 strikeouts to lead the No. 15/23 nationally ranked Franklin
Pierce University baseball team to a 12-1 win over Merrimack in
Northeast-10 Conference play at Warrior Baseball Diamond. Six of
Franklin Pierce's nine starters had multiple hits in the game.
With the win, Franklin Pierce
improves to 34-10 (18-6 Northeast-10), while Merrimack falls to
13-27 (5-19 Northeast-10). Franklin Pierce heads into Saturday's
doubleheader at New Haven, the regular-season finale, tied with
Massachusetts Lowell for second place in the Conference. The top
two teams will earn first-round byes in next week's Northeast-10
Championship. Franklin Pierce can clinch a bye with two wins at New
Haven, and would host the Championship if it finishes in front of
Lowell.
Franklin Pierce opened the scoring
with three runs in the top of the second and never looked back.
Senior designated hitter Derek Ingui (Sterling,
Mass.) led off with a single through the left side of the
infield and scored when Mathieu followed with his third home run of
the season on a line drive to straightaway center field. Later,
with one out, junior third baseman Isaac Wenrich
(Westlawn, Pa.) pushed a double down the left-field line
and scored on an RBI single back through the middle by freshman
center fielder Ross Lincoln
(Woodstock, Conn.).
Ingui would finish the day 3-for-5
to push his batting average to .413 (64-for-155). He is attempting
to become the first Raven to hit over .400 in a season since the
Northeast-10 switched to wood bats.
Merrimack would put together its
only run of the game in the bottom of the third to cut the lead to
3-1. With one out, freshman shortstop Eddie Newton worked a walk,
moved to third as an error and then a single by sophomore second
baseman Brett Julian loaded the bases. Newton would score on an RBI
single through the left side by junior left fielder Tim Curran, but
Downing would strike out the next two batters to end the
inning.
Downing was nearly unhittable the
rest of the afternoon on the way to earning the win (7-1). Outside
of the third inning, he allowed only two hits and four baserunners.
Three of those baserunners were erased at second on double plays,
while the other was left at first base, meaning the third inning
was the only frame in which Merrimack got runners in scoring
position. Over his eight innings, Downing held the third, fourth
and fifth Merrimack hitters to a 1-for-9 performance with five
strikeouts. He did not allow an extra-base hit and faced just 29
batters over eight innings, five over the minimum, before freshman
right-hander Kevin McGowan
(Nashua, N.H.) pitched a perfect ninth with two strikeouts
to wrap up the game.
Franklin Pierce added to its lead
with two more in the top of the third to make it a 5-1 game.
LaCroix led off the inning and clubbed a home run to left field,
his third of the season. Next, Wenrich pulled a single to right,
moved to second on a sacrifice bunt and scored on an RBI single to
left by junior second baseman Dan Hennigan
(Downingtown, Pa.).
The Ravens broke the game wide open
in the late innings with two in the seventh, one in the eighth and
four in the ninth to create the 12-1 final. In the seventh, Ingui
led off with a double to left and later came into score when
Mathieu reached on an error. Mathieu would later score on an RBI
single through the left side by LaCroix. Hennigan singled and
scored an unearned run in the eighth, while junior right fielder
Mike
Munoz (Bronx, N.Y.) hit a two-run double and junior
catcher Mike
Dowd (East Bridgewater, Mass.) drove home a pair with
a single to center field in the ninth.
Junior right-hander Chris Pinette
started and took the loss (2-5) on the hill for Merrimack. Over
seven innings, he allowed seven runs (six earned) on 14 hits,
walked one, hit a batter and did not record a strikeout. In fact,
Franklin Pierce hitters struck out just twice over the course of 43
at-bats in the game.
The Ravens return to the field on
Saturday, May 7, when they travel to New Haven for a Northeast-10
Conference doubleheader, the regular-season finale. First pitch is
scheduled for noon at Frank Vieira Field in West Haven, Conn.
For more information on Franklin
Pierce Athletics, please visit the official website of Franklin
Pierce Athletics (http://athletics.franklinpierce.edu). Also be
sure to follow the Ravens through the Department of Athletics'
official Facebook page
(http://www.facebook.com/FranklinPierceRavens), its YouTube channel
(http://www.youtube.com/franklinpiercesports) and its Twitter feed
(http://twitter.com/FPUathletics).
