Baseball Falls in Middle Game of Series to Illinois

Saturday, March 4

Boca Raton, Fla.

4:00 PM

Florida Atlantic

5-4-1

Illinois

3-6

Illinois

Florida Atlantic

3/4/2017 12:00:00 AM | Baseball

Box Score

March 4, 2017

Box Score

BOCA RATON, Fla. - Illinois scored runs in six straight innings and had six home runs to turn away the Florida Atlantic University baseball team on Saturday evening at FAU Baseball Stadium, 14-4.

The Turning Point

Back-to-back four-run innings for the Fighting Illini (3-6), in the fourth and fifth, pushed them out to a double-digit lead, and starting pitcher Ty Weber gave up just one run in six innings of work.

The Finish

That first FAU (5-4-1) run came on a David Miranda solo homer in the bottom of the sixth, his second in as many days. The Owls would go on to add three runs in the eighth, sparked by a two-run single by Kevin Abraham.

Notables

Also in the eighth, freshman Alex Ray notched his first collegiate hit in his first-ever FAU at-bat
A ninth inning single by Tyler Frank extended his season-opening hitting streak to 10 games
Jared Shouppe returned from four games off with a ninth-inning single as well
Gary Mattis added two more hits on Saturday and is now batting .359
For the freshman, he has now hit in five straight games, while fellow first-year Eric Rivera has a six-game streak
Mike Ruff made his collegiate pitching debut, hurling the seventh and eighth innings. Eric Keating pitched a spotless ninth with two strikeouts to finish out the game

Quotable

"It's baseball, these things happen in a 56-game season, you're going to be on both sides of those," said Head Coach John McCormack. "Credit to Illinois, after (Friday's) loss, they came out ready to play, got some runs early and were able to sustain it. Jake (Miednik) wasn't what we've seen the last two starts, but I thought AJ (Andrew Jones) in relief was solid, I thought that Ruff was pretty good in relief, and it was nice to see Keating get out there and be successful. There were some positives, not many, but those things happen. It's part of baseball."

What's Next

Sunday's rubber matchup pits Nick Swan of FAU against Ryan Thompson from Illinois for a scheduled noon first pitch. Pregame will be at 11:50 a.m. on FAUSports.TV.