Baseball Falls To Florida 6-2
Feb. 10, 2002
Coral Gables, Fla. (www.hurricanesports.com) – – The University of Miami baseball team (2-4) dropped its second game of the weekend to the visiting Florida Gators (5-0), 6-2, Sunday afternoon at Mark Light Stadium. Miami also lost 12-9 on Friday to UF to open the series, while Saturday night’s game was cancelled due to a rainout.
The consecutive losses to Florida at Mark Light Stadium are the most to the Gators since dropping the last and first meetings of the 1995 and 1996 series at home.
Florida jumped out to an early 1-0 lead in the first inning on a Pat Osborn sacrifice fly scoring Mark Kiger from third. Kiger drew a walk to get on base, moved to second on a single to right field by Mario Garza and then to third on a Kiki Bengochea (0-2) balk.
The Gators went ahead, 3-0, in the sixth inning on Brian Rose’ two-run home run to left field. The home run also scored Ben Harrison, who reached on a double down the left line and moved to third on a sacrifice grounder by Ryan Shealy.
The Hurricanes came back with two runs in the bottom of the sixth, 3-2, on Kevin Mannix’ two RBI single to left center. The Mannix hit brought in Danny Figueroa and Kevin Howard. Figueroa reached on a throwing error on the third baseman, while Howard had his 45th career double. The Howard double tied him for 10th place all-time in the UM record books with Bobby Hill (1997-99).
Florida answered with two runs in the top of the seventh, 5-2, off UM relievers Vince Vazquez, Andrew Cohn and George Huguet. Aaron Davidson led off with a double on Vazquez. Kiger then walked. With Cohn on the mound, Aaron Sobieraj sac bunted the two runners over, followed by an intentional walk to Osborn to load the bases. Huguet entered the game and hit Ben Harrison on full count to bring the first run in. After striking Shealy, second baseman Paco Figueroa booted Jeff Corsaletti’s grounder to score Kiger.
Alex Hart (2-0) departed after six innings with four hits, two unearned runs, one walk and two strikeouts. LHP Jimmy Ramshaw replaced Hart on the mound. Bengochea also went six innings with five hits, three earned runs, four walks and two strikeouts.
In the ninth, UF added its sixth run, 6-2, on a solo home run from Osborn off Huguet.
The Hurricanes return to action next weekend as the Minnesota Golden Gophers visit Mark Light Stadium for a three-game series beginning Friday night at 7 p.m. Saturday’s baseball game begins at 1 p.m., while the Sunday game is at Noon.
The Friday night game with Minnesota will also mark the return of former Hurricanes star Dave Berg, who will throw out the ceremonial first pitch. Berg recently signed with the Toronto Blue Jays after spending his entire career with the Florida Marlins organization.
For more information on UM athletics and the Hurricane baseball team, log on to www.hurricanesports.com. For ticket information call 1-800 GO CANES.
