Baseball Defeats San Diego State, 4-1
Feb. 22, 2003
CORAL GABLES, Fla. (hurricanesports.com) – The Miami baseball team defeated San Diego State, 4-1, clinching the series victory over the Aztecs in front of 4,094 fans on Saturday night at Mark Light Field.
The Hurricanes’ hottest hitter, co-captain Jim Burt went 2-for-3 at the plate, scoring two runs and recording two RBI on a home run to right field.
UM starting pitcher Vince Bongiovanni (2-1) scored the win for the Hurricanes going 5.2 innings, striking out six and giving up only one earned run. Joe Carque (1-1) took the loss for the Aztecs going 7.0 innings giving up six hits and four earned runs, while striking out five hitters. Reliever Shawn Valdes-Fauli recorded his first save of the season going 1.1 innings with two strikeouts.
With freshman Ryan Braun on second after a leadoff double, Burt collected his second hit of the night with a home run to right-center field. The blast was Burt’s team-high third home run of the season, while the two RBIs were numbers seven and eight of the season.
Catcher Greg Dini continued to swing a hot bat, singling home Burt, who singled to left field to open the inning to give UM an early 1-0 lead.
San Diego State got on the scoreboard in the fifth inning with a RBI single from Landon Burt. Bongiovanni walked two in the inning, but got out of trouble as UM’s Burt beat Anthony Gwynn to the bag for the unassisted putout.
The Figueroa brothers got things started for the Hurricanes in the bottom of the fifth inning with Paco laying down a drag bunt that the SDSU third baseman field on the run, but wasn’t able to make the play. Danny laid down his first sacrifice bunt of the season to move Paco to second. Figueroa advanced to third on a fly ball to right field off the bat of Adam Ricks. Miami extended the cushion back to three runs when Carque uncorked a wild pitch to score Figueroa.
With runners on first and third base, freshman left-handed pitcher Andrew Lane made his second appearance for the Hurricanes in relief of Bongiovanni. Lane got the Aztecs’ designated hitter Josh Hill to fly out to right field.
Lane stayed in and worked the seventh inning, getting SDSU’s two-hole hitter James Guerrero to ground into a 6-4-3 double play. He retired the first two hitters of the eighth inning before giving way to right-hander Valdes-Fauli. Lane pitched two without allowing a run and only giving up one hit, while throwing 24 pitches. Valdes-Fauli got Jake McLintock to strikeout looking to end the eighth inning.
The Hurricanes will complete the weekend series with San Diego State Sunday, Feb. 23 at Noon at Mark Light Field on the UM campus.
