Spartans Dominate Panthers in Series Opener

Box score

MELBOURNE, Fla. - The No. 8 University of Tampa Spartans baseball team shutout the Florida Tech Panthers by a score of 8-0 on Friday evening, taking the first game of a three game series.

Spartans pitcher Chase Sparkman was the headline of the series opener, going the distance and throwing a complete game shutout, using only 117 pitches.

Sparkman got through the first inning using only 6 pitches. Sparkman retired 11 of his first 14 batters faced. Spark man cruised through the mid innings and headed into the bottom of the 9th under 100 pitches.

With fatigue kicking in, it seemed like Sparkman would give up a run with the bases loaded and only 1 out in the inning. Chase was able to fight back and get a strikeout and a fly out to end the game. Only giving up 6 hits, 3 walks, and 4 strikeouts in 9 innings of pitching, it was easily Sparkman's best performance of the season.

The Spartans offense was able to backup Sparkman's impressive performance with production of their own, scoring 8 runs total.

After a quiet first 2 innings, the Spartans bats came out in the 3rd. The Spartans started their scoring with a double from Andrew Amaro with one out in the inning. Casey Scoggins was able to bring Amaro around with a single to left field to score the game's first run. Brett Jones singled on a hit and run which put Scoggins on 3rd. Stephen Dezzi singled up the middle to bring Scoggins in to score and make it 2-0. Thanks to consecutive singles, a sac fly, and a hit by pitch, the Spartans were able to go up 5-0 after the 3rd inning.

6 different Spartans were able to register RBIs in the game. Stephen Dezzi led the way with 2 RBIs of his own.

Thanks to Sparkman's lights out pitching performance, the Spartans didn't need many runs, but were able to supply them anyway.

The Spartans will finish their series with the Panthers in a doubleheader tomorrow. Game 2 will begin at 1 PM at Florida Institute of Technology in Melbourne, Florida. Tampa will be looking to climb the SSC standings tomorrow.

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