JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Though it was a bit of an offensive snooze-fest for the first six innings, the baseball team of Jacksonville University collected four hits in the final two innings to take down the New Jersey Institute of Technology 4-2 on Friday night.
"It was good for us to grind through this win, with our offense and our bullpen picking us up in this game," said starting pitcher Michael Baumann. "This win will hopefully carry our momentum forward for the next few weeks. As the season winds down we need to just take it one game at a time, because the next game is the biggest game."
Jacksonville (30-18) jumps to 11-5 in Atlantic Sun play while NJIT (17-30) dropped its 13th straight conference game to move down to 2-13 in the conference.
The one hour lightning delay seemed to affect the bats quite a bit more than the pitchers, with neither team putting a run across in the first six innings. The two teams had just five hits combined through the first two-thirds of the game. Austin Hays ended his hitless streak with a single in the fourth, and Dakota Julylia had a bunt single in the sixth.
"I just try to swing at pitches in the zone and get my pitches to hit," said right fielder Austin Hays. "I try to slow everything down and not feel any pressure. It's best to play the game we've always played and have fun. That's what we talked about before this game."
Things really took off for Jacksonville in the seventh inning. Mike Schappell took over for Michael Baumann in the seventh, and quickly sat down three Highlanders. In the bottom half of the inning the Dolphins exploded for three runs on an RBI single by Connor Stephens and a two RBI triple by Nathan Koslowski. After seven Jacksonville led 3-0.
The Highlanders answered in the top of the eighth, scoring two on a deep RBI single and an ill-advised cutoff on the throw home. But the Dolphins ended the inning on a Schappell strikeout and a Franco Guardascione pickoff.
Jacksonville added to its lead in the bottom of the eighth on a sac fly by Parker Perez, giving the Dolphins a 4-2 lead heading into the ninth.
Mike Cassala came in for the Dolphins in the save situation, and collected his A-Sun-leading 11th save with a ground out, a pop out, and a fly out. The freshman from Jacksonville is just one save away from tying the Jacksonville single-season record currently held by Casey Shumaker, who had 12 in 2001.
"It took us a little while to figure it out tonight, but we came around and can hopefully carry that momentum into tomorrow," said Hays.
