#8 Spartans Come Back In Win Over #25 Lakers
| Final | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | R | H | E |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Grand Valley State
|
0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 6 | 11 | 2 |
|
Tampa
|
0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 8 | 12 | 3 |
GREENWOOD, S.C. - After falling behind 5-0 in the fifth inning, the No. 8 University of Tampa baseball team mounted a convincing comeback to take their second game of the Lander Baseball Invitational, winning 8-6 over No. 25 Grand Valley State. The Spartans (3-2) put up 12 hits in the game while the Lakers (1-1) added 11 of their own.
GVSU's five spot in the fifth off Tampa starter Matt Williams looked daunting until the Spartans rebounded with three of their own in the bottom half of the inning. Trace Venegas singled and Taylor Wrenn was hit by a pitch before Pat Donahue doubled them both home to clear the bases. Eric Grabe followed with a sacrifice fly to pull UT within two.
Freshman outfielder Andrew Jones added an RBI double in the sixth to bring the game within one and a costly Laker error pushed two across in the seventh to give the Spartans their first lead of the contest at 6-5. Tampa added a couple of insurance runs in the eighth as Jones homered and Wrenn singled in Raiko Alfonso.
Grand Valley got one back in the ninth but Tim Kiley closed out the game and sealed the victory for Frank DeJiulio in his Spartan debut. DeJiulio (1-0) took the mound in the fifth and tossed 3.1 innings. He allowed just three hits and a run while fanning six before Max Kreuter came on in relief to retire a batter. Brad Zambron was tabbed with the loss for the Lakers after two innings of work. He gave up four runs, but just two earned, on five hits.
Donahue finished with a game-high three hits while Wrenn, Jones, and Alfonso notched two each. The Spartans will play their last game of the invitational tomorrow afternoon against 2008 National Champion Mount Olive. Lander athletics will provide livestats for the 3 p.m. game. Livestats will be available through Lander athletics. Fans may also follow University of Tampa athletics on Twitter (www.twitter.com/utspartans) and Facebook (www.facebook.com/tampaspartans). UT also offers blAst, a free text messaging service that sends text alerts following all Spartan events. To sign up, please register at www.tampaspartans.com.