Box Score
Boca Raton, Fla. - The Adelphi University baseball team cracked a season-high 13 hits to snap a four-game losing streak and beat UMass Lowell 13-8 at Lynn University on Thursday. The Panthers improve to 4-5-1 overall while the River Hawks slide to 10-5 on the season.
The two teams combined for 24 hits, 15 walks and 11 errors in a less-than-perfect showing on the pitching and defensive ends. The bats were alive and well, however, as Adelphi scored a combined 11 runs between the third and fifth innings and stole five bases on the day.
Richard Mejia went 3-6 with a double and three RBI to lead a pack of five Panthers with multiple hits.
Anthony Zarrella batted 2-4 with a double, two RBI and walked twice to reach base four times, and
Vincent Sharkey and
Donato Signore each singled twice. The first four batters in the Adelphi order combined for nine hits, seven RBI and nine runs scored on the afternoon.
Rob Burns had a pair of base hits and
John Campbell walked three times and stole two bases to pace the bottom of the order.
Jimmy Milani earned the win in 1.2 innings of relief, allowing just one hit and walking one without surrendering an earned run.
Jonathon Mulford went 3.1 innings in his second collegiate start and allowed a pair of earned runs on five hits with a pair of strikeouts.
Stephen Bove and
John Bivas combined to toss two innings of shutout baseball, while
Nikolas Batas came in from the bullpen to record the final out of the ninth inning.
For UMass Lowell, Jimmy Ricoy went 3-4, doubled and scored twice, and Matt Sanchez batted 2-5 with a two-run home run out of the ninth spot. The River Hawks sent eight pitchers to the mound in the contest with Greg Leger drawing the loss after surrendering six runs (two earned) on four hits in 1.1 frames.
The two-run bomb by Sanchez in the second inning gave UMass Lowell its only lead of the game as the Panthers would explode for 11 runs over the next three frames to go up 11-6. Adelphi plated a pair of runs with two away in the third after Mejia and
Chad Houghton ripped back-to-back RBI singles up the middle.
The Panthers assembled a monster inning in the fourth, scoring six runs on four hits and taking advantage of four River Hawk errors. Sharkey and Campbell both singled and a double steal put them on second and third with one out. An infield error juiced the bases for Zarrella, who unloaded a two-run double to the center field wall. Mejia pushed another across with a single to left, and three straight defensive miscues made it an 8-2 game through three and a half.
UMass Lowell got four back in the bottom half of the inning as the contagious defensive slip-ups made their way to the Adelphi side. A booted ball on the infield scored the first run and put River Hawks on first and second, prompting the call to Milani from the pen. A sacrifice fly, double and an error brought three more across before a lineout ended the threat.
Adelphi refused to take the foot off the gas, however, and a walk and three straight singles scored two more runs to start the fifth. A mishandled fly ball made it 11-6 after the top of the fifth and that score would hold up into the eighth inning.
A hit-by-pitch and back-to-back singles gave UMass Lowell its seventh run, but a Mejia double and RBI single by
Kyle Ambury made it 13-7 heading to the bottom of the ninth. A River Hawk sac fly pushed it to 13-8 as they faced their final out, but Batas coaxed a swinging strikeout to complete the contest.
Adelphi returns to action on Saturday with the final game of its Florida trip as the Panthers take on regional-power Franklin Pierce at Nova Southeastern University at 1 p.m.
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