Hurricanes Lose Second Straight to Mercer
Feb. 3, 2007
CORAL GABLES, Fla. –
The Miami Hurricanes lost their second straight contest to the Mercer Bears as they were defeated 8-5 Saturday night at Mark Light Field.
For the second straight night, the Hurricanes (0-2) plated a pair of runs in the bottom of the first inning. Mercer left-hander Blake Quarles retired the first two batters before Yonder Alonso and Mark Sobolewski delivered back-to-back singles. Following a walk to right fielder Dennis Raben, Gus Menendez recorded a two-run single scoring Alonso and Sobolewski.
Mercer tied the score, 2-2, on Billy Shaughnessy’s two-run blast in the fourth inning. Shaughnessy belted senior right-hander Danny Gil’s 0-2 offering just inside the foul pole down the left-field line.
Miami took back the lead in the bottom half of the fourth when Jason Lowey came in relief of Quarles. With two outs and the bases loaded, Lowey hit Sobolewski with a pitch, giving the Hurricanes a 3-2 advantage.
The Bears battled back again in the fifth as Matt Crawford led off with a walk and on a nicely executed hit-and-run, Crawford advanced to third on a Tyler McCarty single down the right-field line. With Tyler Brown batting, Gil threw a wild pitch allowing Crawford to score and even up the score at three runs apiece.
Teddy Kaufman relieved Gil with one out in the inning and hit Eric Renfroe with a pitch. The Hurricanes then turned to Jason Santana out of the bullpen with the bases loaded and Mike Armstrong at the plate. Armstrong produced an RBI fielder’s choice giving Mercer the lead at 4-3.
In the back-and-forth affair, Miami knotted up the score again on a sacrifice fly by Nick Freitas that scored Menendez in the bottom of the fifth. With the score tied a four, the Hurricanes struck again as freshman Ryan Jackson notched his first collegiate hit, scoring Blake Tekotte, and putting Miami back ahead, 5-4.
Mercer took advantage on a pair of Miami miscues in the seventh. McCarty scored when Shaughnessy was hit by a pitch, and Steven Karwatt followed with a high fly ball in front of home plate. Gutierrez dropped the ball allowing Brown to score the go-ahead run and give the Bears a 6-5 lead.
Armstrong added some insurance with a two-run home run in the ninth.
Andy Campbell registered the win for Mercer throwing two innings of no-hit, shutout relief. Raben was charged with the loss allowing one unearned run in 0.2 innings of work.
Quarles went three innings and allowed two earned runs on six hits and Hurricanes’ starter Danny Gil no-hit the Bears through 3.2 innings, but only retired two more batters before his departure. He allowed four earned runs on three hits while striking out four batters.
The three-game series wraps up tomorrow when the teams meet at 1 p.m.
