Florida Atlantic University Athletics
Florida Atlantic
New Orleans
New Orleans Walks Off With Series
5/3/2008 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
May 3, 2008
NEW ORLEANS, LA - Florida Atlantic University's All-America candidate Mike McKenna hit a go-ahead 2-run double with two outs in the eighth, but the University of New Orleans rallied to score twice in the late stages to take Game Two of its weekend series with FAU 6-5.
Johnny Giavotella's walk-off single in the bottom of the ninth plated the winning run for New Orleans (33-13; 14-8 SBC). The Privateers have won eight straight.
Florida Atlantic (25-19; 12-9 SBC) finds itself on the losing side of a Sun Belt Conference series for the first time since the weekend of March 28-30.
Mike Gipson (3-1) plunked UNO's lead-off batter in the bottom of the ninth. After pinch-runner Tyrone Weathers was moved up to second base on a sacrifice bunt, Giavotella swatted a 1-1 fastball from Brett Cannon into right field to end it.
The end result overshadowed a gutty comeback effort from FAU.
With the game knotted at two runs apiece, UNO's Josh Vander Hey drove in two runs on a double that ended FAU lefty Jeff Beliveau's afternoon in the bottom of the seventh.
Beliveau turned in another solid starting performance. Before Vander Hey's tie-braking double in the seventh, Beliveau had allowed just two unearned runs and struck out nine- a season-high.
UNO right-handed starter Stephen Whalen kept FAU hitless through five and was in position to win after Vander Hey's double, but privateer closer Ryan O'Shea (2-1) blew his second save, allowing three eighth-inning hits.
David Wilson led off the FAU eighth by drawing a walk and Sean Bukovich and Nick Arata followed with singles to set the stage for McKenna. Trailing by one run and down to its last out of the inning, McKenna drove a 1-0 pitch from O'Shea into the right-centerfield gap to put the Owls up 5-4.
Joey Butler led off the UNO eighth with a triple off Gipson and Josh Lanning's RBI groundout moments later tied the game up 5-5.
Whalen would benefit as the winning pitcher by working a scoreless top half of the ninth, watching Giovatella plate the winning run on Cannon's third pitch.
GAME NOTES: Saturday's start time was moved back to 3 p.m. due to a morning storm that passed through the area, but weather conditions at game time were ideal, sunny and 80 degrees... Troy Bubley appeared as a pinch runner for the sixth time, which leads the team... Bubley came on to run for Nick Arata in the eighth inning... Arata is still bothered by a quad injury suffered last Saturday against WKU.
