HATTIESBURG, MS—PJ Higgins drove in two runs and Josh Eldridge and Connor Myers each knocked in a run, but second seed and No. 25 ranked Florida Atlantic defeated the Monarchs, 6-4 in the opening round of the 2015 C-USA Baseball Championships at Pete Taylor Park.
The Monarchs will play the loser of the UAB-Southern Miss game Thursday after the completion of the Southern Miss-UAB game which was suspended due to lighting. Listen to the game on STAR1310 AM with Ted Alexander and Doug Ripley.
No. 3 seed Southern Miss and No. 6 seed UAB battled through three lightning delays before being suspended for good at 1:34 AM with the Blazers leading 3-0 through seven complete innings. The game will be resumed around 12:30 p.m. on Thursday, following the regularly scheduled 9 am game.
Revised Thursday, May 21 Schedule
Game 5 Middle Tennessee vs. Rice 9:00a
Game 4 resumption (6) UAB vs. (3) Southern Miss app. 12:30p
Game 6 Old Dominion vs. Loser Game 4 TBD (45 min. after conclusion of previous game)
Game 7 UTSA vs. FIU TBD (45 min. after conclusion of previous game)
Game 8 Florida Atlantic vs. UAB-Southern Miss Winner TBD (45 min. after conclusion of previous game)
“I was very proud of our guys on the way they battled back,” said ODU head coach Chris Finwood. “We came back and put some good at-bats together, and we had the tying run on third with one out and the infield in. We left too many runners in scoring position in the first three innings and were not able to get them home. Sam was struggling a bit with his off-speed stuff, and about the fourth inning he found it and got us to the seventh. The wild pitch in the seventh hurt, because it’s a big difference between a one run game and a two run game. We have to bounce back tomorrow. We were in a similar situation last year and came back to win our next three games. ”
The Owls jumped out to a 5-0 lead. Conference Player of the Year Brendon Sanger sacrifice fly RBI brought home Stephen Kerr in the first inning. In the four-run third Ricky Santiago doubled home two runs and Roman Collins doubled in two.
The Monarchs rallied with three runs in the fifth when All-C-USA PJ Higgins doubled home All-Freshman selection Zach Rutherford followed by an RBI single by Josh Eldridge to make it 5-3. ODU cut the lead to one in the sixth when Connor Myers belted his first homer of the season to left field.
Seth McGarry came on in the ninth for FAU to retire the Monarchs and pick up his fourth save of the season.
Higgins led ODU with two hits, while Stephen Kerr, Roman Collins and Christian Dicks had two hits each for FAU.
ODU 000 031 000=4-8-0
FAU 104 000 10x=6-9-0
ODU: S.Sinnen, Busbice(7), Benitez(7), Tomchick (8) and Perez
FAU: Rhodes, Monkman(6),Logan(7), McGarry(9) and Miller
HR: ODU- Myers(1)
WP: Rhodes(4-1) LP: Sinnen(6-3) Save: McGarry (4)