Hurricanes Provide Gift For Carrillo In 4-3 Win Against Maryland
April 29, 2005
CORAL GABLES, Fla. (www.hurricanesports.com) – The Hurricanes saw more pitchers than runs but provided just enough offense to allow starter Cesar Carrillo to celebrate his 21st birthday with his 22nd career victory Friday night. The fourth-ranked ‘Canes grinded out a 4-3 decision against eight Maryland pitchers in front of 2,801 at Mark Light Field to run their record to 32-10-1 overall and 16-5-1 in the Atlantic Coast Conference.
Carrillo threw eight innings and gave up six hits and two earned runs with two walks and nine strikeouts to move his record to 10-0 this season. The win brought Carrillo’s career record to 22-0 and he moved into sixth place on the NCAA’s all-time list for consecutive decisions won without a loss. Sophomore Chris Perez picked up his fourth save of the year for Miami with a perfect ninth inning.
Miami was led by Ryan Braun, Paco Figueroa and Jon Jay, who all went 2-for-4. Braun and Danny Valencia both hit solo home runs to lead the Hurricanes.
Maryland’s Matt Maropis, Truan Mehl and Jordan Wilson had two hits apiece and accounted for all six of the Terps’ hits. Casey Baron was charged with the loss and pitched one and a third innings and gave up one hit, a home run to Valencia in the fifth.
The Terps (20-25, 6-19 Atlantic Coast Conference) used eight different pitchers in an effort to overcome and injury to ace Ben Pfinsgraff, who did not travel with the team. Miami could not piece together more than one run in an inning, despite amassing 11 hits, and wound up with no runs in three different bases-loaded situations and a total of 11 runners left on base.
Eight wasn’t enough for Maryland in the end. Hurricanes catcher Eddy Rodriguez followed Roger Tomas’ fifth triple of the year with a two-out single to left to drive in the winning run off Maryland’s seventh pitcher of the evening in the seventh inning, Brett Cecil.
Maryland came within 4-3 in the top of the eighth when Maropis scored on an unearned run on a throwing error. Carrillo worked his way out of the rest of the inning before Perez relieved him prior to the ninth.
Perez struck out Chad Durakis, forced Bobby Ryan to ground out and got Jason Von Behren to foul out to Valencia to end the game.
Maropis and Mehl hit back-to-back one-out singles off Carrillo to put runners at the corners in the first inning. Will Frazier grounded out to first to score Maropis for an early 1-0 lead.
Miami got on the board in the second with a single by Danny Figueroa that scored Roger Tomas from second base to tie the game at 1-1.
Braun broke the tie in the third with a solo shot on a 1-2 pitch from Brett Tidball to lead off the inning.
Durakis’ fielder’s choice to second base in the fourth was enough to score Brian Jarosinski from third to tied the game.
Valencia homered to left-center off Baron to lead off the fifth and retake the lead.
Miami and Maryland continue their series with a 7 p.m. tilt Saturday at Mark Light Field.
Notes: More than 30 players and staff from the Hurricanes’ 1985 College World Series Championship team were on-hand and recognized in a pre-game ceremony… It was the first meeting between Miami and Maryland… Jay snapped a 0-12 slump with a single in his first at-bat… Braun’s home run was the 39th of his career, tying him with Randy Guerra (1976-79) and Manny Crespo (1998-2000) for sixth on the all-time list at Miami… Danny Figueroa tied Bobby Hill (1997-99) for the most times being hit by a pitch in a career when he was plunked for the 32nd time in the fourth inning by Justin Hulse.
