Baseball: A Stormy Big East Tourney Exit
May 25, 2006 10:52 PM | General
May 25, 2006
BOX SCORE
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| Justin Jenkins |
CLEARWATER, Fla. – St. John’s sent 11 batters to the plate in a six-run fourth inning and tacked on five more runs in final two frames to defeat West Virginia 12-7 in a Big East tournament elimination round game Thursday night at Bright House Networks Field in Clearwater, Fla.
The Red Storm (39-18) will face Notre Dame Friday and must beat the Irish twice to advance to Saturday’s championship game to be played at 1 pm and will be televised on ESPNU. In the other bracket Rutgers will face Louisville. The Scarlet Knights knocked No. 2-seeded Connecticut out of the tournament earlier tonight.
Things looked good early for West Virginia, the Mountaineers jumping out to a 5-1 lead heading into the fourth inning. Justin Jenkins doubled in a pair of runs in West Virginia’s three-run first, and Kyle Matuszek slugged a two-run home run off Red Storm starter Matt Tosoni in the bottom of the third.
But West Virginia starting pitcher Eric Saffell began the fourth by giving up three straight hits and five in all before being lifted with a 5-4 lead and two runners on with only one out.
Dan Leatherman was able to strike out Bryan Dirr, whose bunt attempt with two strikes went foul. Leatherman walked Sam DeLuca to load the bases, and Jenkins was not able to handle a difficult play down the third base line that plated Jeff Grantham to tie the game. If Jenkins could have come up with the ball cleanly, he could have tagged the bag and got Vogl on a force play at third.
Anthony Smith followed with a sharp single to center that knocked in two more runs to give the Red Storm a 7-5 lead.
Michael Burger led off the bottom of the fourth with his first home run of the year, and West Virginia was poised to get more, but Tyler Kuhn was picked off trying to steal second for the second out of the inning. Doug Nelms followed with a walk and Justin Jenkins singled to center before Stan Posluszny struck out to end the inning.
St. John’s reliever Jared Yecker (7-1) was able to blank West Virginia over the next 3 1/3 innings before giving way to James Lalley in the seventh. The sidewinder gave up one earned run – a Doug Nelms home run to lead off the bottom of the ninth – to register his third save of the year.
Dan Leatherman pitched three scoreless innings before tiring in the eighth. He allowed 12 hits and six earned runs in 5 1/3 innings. Saffell (3 1/3 innings pitched, nine hits, and six earned runs) was credited with the loss to fall to 6-2.
Seven West Virginia pitchers gave up 24 runs and 34 hits in WVU's pair of Big East tournament losses to Notre Dame and St. John's.
St. John’s finished the game with 21 hits. All nine batters in the Red Storm lineup had at least one hit including Chris Joachim, who finished the game 4 for 5 with a run scored and an RBI.
West Virginia (36-22) had 14 hits. Jenkins went 3 for 5 with two RBI while Kuhn, Nelms and Matuszek had a pair of hits each.
Jenkins established a school record for hits in a season with 94, passing All-American first baseman Mark Landers’ 91-hit campaign in 1994. Senior left fielder Casey Bowling went 1 for 4 and finished the year with a team-leading .403 batting average. Bowling is just the seventh Mountaineer player since 1990 with more than 100 at-bats to accomplish that feat.
