No. 2 Owls Fall 5-1 in Regional Opener

Friday, June 3

Coral Gables, Fla.

1:00 PM

Florida Atlantic

38-18

Long Beach State

37-20

Long Beach State

Florida Atlantic

6/3/2016 12:00:00 AM | Baseball

Box Score

June 3, 2016

Final Stats

CORAL GABLES, Fla. -- The two-seed Florida Atlantic University baseball team was unable to warm the bats up early enough on Friday as No. 3 Long Beach State took the Coral Gables Regional opener with a 5-1 win.

"It makes the road a little bit tougher [if you lose the first game], but we did it last year," FAU Head Coach John McCormack said. "I told them it's not the end of the world. You can still get through these things. It's just, we've got to play better baseball. Certainly, the tournament isn't over by any stretch if the imagination. It's just a matter of, we are going to have to be better and we are going to have to fight a little bit longer to win the thing."

The Owls (38-18) were held to just three hits in the contest with Esteban Puerta hitting a home run and Christian Dicks crafting a double.

Starting pitcher David McKay suffered the loss, allowing two earned runs on six hits in five innings of work. Alex House and Colyn O'Connell each surrendered one run in their two innings of work apiece.

Three consecutive hits by the Dirtbags (37-20) to lead off the second inning, coupled with an FAU error, led to two Long Beach State runs for an early lead.

LBSU extended the advantage with a run in each the fifth and sixth innings while starting pitcher Chris Mathewson dealt a no-hitter through six innings.

On the first pitch of the seventh, Puerta belted his tenth homer of the season, a solo shot to left, for FAU's first hit of the game. Dicks followed with a double, but was left stranded.

FAU mustered two more runners over the next two frames, but were unable to produce runs to fall into the consolation bracket.

The Owls will take on Friday night's loser Stetson on Saturday, June 4 at 1 p.m. Marc Stewart will start for FAU while Kevin Fagan will get the nod for the Hatters. The game will be aired on ESPN3 and free radio is available on FAUSports.com.