Baseball: Buckner's Big Day Lifts Gold
October 19, 2009 08:22 PM | General
By Steve Stone for MSNsportsNET.com
October 19, 2009
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – For the second straight game, redshirt junior Grant Buckner drove in five runs to lift the Gold team to a 14-6 win and a three-game sweep over the Blue team in the 20th Gold-Blue World Series on Monday evening at Hawley Field.
The Elkview, W.Va., native went 2-for-4 with five RBIs, including a two-run home run in the first inning to jumpstart the Gold. Buckner finished the series going 7-for-13 with one home run, a team-best 11 RBIs and one double.
Redshirt junior Mark Dvoroznak added a team-high three hits with three RBIs and two runs scored. The Westlake, Ohio, native batted .583 with four RBIs and two doubles to lead all hitters in batting average.
“I thought all our guys played extremely hard this series,” coach Greg Van Zant said. “You learn a lot about your players when you put them in pressure situations with the lights on, and you get to learn what your personnel can and can’t do.”
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| Jedd Gyorko led all players with three home runs in the three-game series
WVU Photography |
Colin Durborow, Humberto Melendez and Justin McDavid each posted two hits apiece to lead a Gold team that garnered 12 hits overall in game three. The squad also totaled six steals, including three by freshman Brady Wilson and two by Dvoroznak.
Junior Jedd Gyorko was responsible for all six runs by the Blue team, going 2-for-5 with six RBIs. The returning Brooks Wallace Award finalist had two home runs, including a grand slam in the fifth inning that gave the Blue a brief 4-3 advantage. T.J. Kuban and Michael Knight added two hits apiece.
Gyorko led the Blue with a .385 average in the three-game set. He went 5-for-13 and led all hitters with three home runs while driving in seven RBIs.
Freshman Jared Hill earned the win for the Gold after giving up four runs on six hits with seven strikeouts in six innings pitched.
“I think our team has worked hard and improved throughout the fall,” Van Zant added. “We’re much more improved now than we were when school started, but we have a lot more work to do between now and the start of our first game.”
The Gold got off to another good start when Buckner drove a 3-2 fastball down the left field line for a two-run home run, giving his team an early 2-0 advantage in the first inning.
Durborow added a long ball of his own, hammering a 1-0 pitch that barely stayed fair inside the left field foul pole to put the Gold up 3-0 in the fourth frame.
With two outs in the fifth inning, Gyorko came through with a key first-pitch grand slam to give the Blue its first lead of the series at 4-3. Hill threw a hitter’s fastball over the middle to give Gyorko his second round-tripper of the three-game set.
Dvoroznak came back to tie the game in the bottom half when he hit a two-out, line-drive double to left center to plate McDavid, who led off the inning with a double to right field. Reliever Dustin Galbraith entered the game following the hit, walking the next three batters to plate Dvoroznak and give the Gold a 5-4 lead.
Galbraith got out of the jam when he induced a groundout by Melendez to end the inning.
Dvoroznak added an insurance run in the sixth when he hit a bases-loaded single through the left side to plate McDavid. Buckner followed with a two-run single to break the game open, and Melendez added another two-run single up the middle to create the 10-4 lead.
With a full count in the seventh, Gyorko added his second home run of the evening, a two-run blast to left center to cut the deficit to 10-6.
The Gold sealed the win with four more runs in the seventh, highlighted by some aggressive baserunning that resulted in five steals during the frame. Wilson stole two bases on back-to-back pitches and scored on a single to left field by Dvoroznak, who also stole two bases and scored on a throwing error. An RBI groundout by Matt Malloy, who drove in two runs, gave the Gold a commanding 14-6 lead.
