Baseball Sweeps Rice To Go To 3-0 in C-USA Play

Sunday, March 17

Boca Raton, Fla.

11:00 AM

Florida Atlantic

14-7, 0

Rice

8-14, 0

Rice

Florida Atlantic

Photo by: JC Ridley/Owlpix.com

3/17/2019 3:30:00 PM | Baseball

Box Score

BOCA RATON, Fla. – For the second straight game, the Florida Atlantic University baseball team pushed across 12 runs on 16 hits, routing Rice by a 12-4 score on Sunday to take a three-game sweep of the visiting Owls on Conference USA opening weekend, and win FAU's eighth game in a row overall.

Quotable

Head Coach John McCormack:
"Really good way to finish off a weekend sweep to open conference play against Rice ... Offense in the first inning, Andru (Summerall) getting the double, and then Pedro (Pages) getting the two-run homer was really good to get us off. I thought we played really well all day, guys were into the game. They kept chipping away and we just kept answering."

Full Opening Statement from Coach Mac

The Turning Point
With two outs in the FAU (14-7, 3-0 C-USA) first, Francisco Urbaez singled, Andru Summerall doubled him in, and Pedro Pages crushed a two-out homer to left. Another two scored in the second to extend the lead, but Rice (8-14, 0-3 C-USA) would cut it to 5-2 with one out in the fifth. With the bases loaded and one out, so the tying run at first and go-ahead run at the plate, reliever Dylan O'Connell notched a strikeout of Andrew Dunlap, and then got Justin Collins to line out to keep the three-run margin.

The Finish
From there, it was pretty much all FAU. The team recorded sacrifice flies in the each of the next three innings, and tacked on four more runs (including another sac fly) in their final at-bat in the eighth. Six FAU pitchers combined to record 13 strikeouts, and scatter seven Rice hits, with zeroes thrown up in the eighth and the ninth for an eighth straight win (and 11 in the last 12).

The Arms

Nick Swan (1-0), in his first outing of 2019, was superb. He allowed just one hit in two innings, and struck out four of the six batters he retired
Following was Ryan Sandberg, with the longest outing of the FAU six, going 2 1/3 with two more K's
O'Connell retired two with a punchout in the crucial fifth
Two walks hampered Jon Jon Kosantis' outing, though he too had two strikeouts
Vince Coletti finished out the seventh and pitched a scoreless eight, striking out three
Closing it out was Michael Schuler, with a hit against him, but otherwise going strike out-groundout-lineout

The Bats

Both the runs (12) and hits (16) matched not only Saturday, but again, FAU's season high
Urbaez went 3-for-5 to close out a series that saw him hit .615 (8-for-13) and slug .846. On Sunday, he scored twice and knocked in a run
Also with three hits was Pages, for the second straight game. He was 3-for-4 with four runs scored (one off the program record in a game), plus three RBI
Mitchell Hartigan and Wilfredo Alvarez both had two hits, and both knocked in two runs. Also with two RBI was Summerall, while Jared DeSantolo also had a two-hit day
The five sac flies, just two off an all-time NCAA record, came from Summerall, Hartigan, Urbaez, BJ Murray and Richie Nizza

What's Next

It's four straight road games for the Owls, starting Tuesday with a trek to the west coast to take on Florida Gulf Coast at 6:30 p.m. Next weekend, the team takes its first out-of-state trip, playing at UAB in Birmingham, Alabama, Friday-Sunday. The return to FAU Baseball Stadium comes on March 27, a Wednesday, hosting Miami at 6:30 p.m. Tickets to that premium game are available by calling 1-866-FAU-OWLS or visiting baseball's ticket website.