Fort Lauderdale, FL – Nova Southeastern held off the Adelphi University baseball team after the Panthers nearly rallied from a 6-0 hole before falling 7-6 earlier today the Nova Southeastern Baseball Complex.
Vincent Sharkey continued his hot start to the year with a 3-for-5 with three RBI for the Panthers (1-1).
Robert Vani and
Michael Stack each added two hits while Vani scored three runs and Stack produced two RBI.
Will Hickey and
Ricky Van Allen came on in relief to combine for 4.1 innings pitched with only one earned run and one hit allowed.
For Nova Southeastern (18-4), the sixth ranked team in the nation, Alexander Fernandez and Yandy Viera manufactured two hits apiece. Viera drove in two runs to match Justin Garcia. Alex Mateo moved to 5-0 on the year with 5.1 innings of work with eight strikeouts.
After not getting on the board until the ninth inning of last night's game, the Sharks got on the board early in today's contest with Viera driving in Nick McNeil with a single to left center in the second inning. McNeil was standing on third after reaching on a walk and two wild pitches.
The momentum continued into the third inning with two more runs, increasing the advantage to 3-0. Mario Urdaneta Fernandez scored on consecutive groundouts after a walk and double to deep left, respectively.
Dylan Woods added to the advantage for the Sharks in the bottom of the fourth with a RBI triple to right center followed by touching home on the sacrifice fly to right from Roche Woodard. Garcia connected for the second triple of the inning, this time scoring Fernandez.
Vani led the fifth inning off with a triple to right center that split the outfielders and scored thanks to a towering double to right by
Michael Stack two batters later to cut the deficit to 6-1. The Brown and Gold drew the bases loaded with two outs; however, Mateo got a key strike out to limit the damage to one run.
Adelphi continued to chip away in the top of the sixth, scoring four runs thanks to five singles and a walk.
John Fogarty and Vani started off with back-to-back singles followed by a
Rich Cambria walk to load the bases for Stack, who drove in Fogarty with a single. Sharkey then singled off the glove of the third baseman to score two followed by a Casarra single to right. Zachary Westcott then produced a 4-6-3 double play for the Sharks to end the inning still leading 6-5.
Van Allen came in for relief in the seventh with the bases loaded and limited the damage to one run by getting two outs on two pitches. Garcia scored for the Sharks on a groundout to first.
Vani and Cambria both drew walks to lead off the eighth before Sharkey singled through the right side to bring in Vani and cut into the lead at 7-6. With the bases loaded later on,
Eric Hassell was unlucky on his attempt to tie the game as Fernandez made a sliding grab just on the outfield grass behind second base to end the inning.
Devin Raftery came on to pick up his fourth save of the season for the Sharks with 1.2 innings pitched, not allowing a hit and striking out two.
The series concludes tomorrow with a 12:00 pm first pitch from the Nova Southeastern Baseball Complex. Later in the day, the Panthers will face Northeast-10 Conference rival New Haven at 6:00 pm.
