May 4, 2008

Box Score

UNIVERSITY OF RICHMOND, Va. - The Richmond baseball team struck for six runs in the sixth inning, rallying from a 4-1 deficit and hung on to defeat Saint Louis, 7-5, Sunday afternoon in the rubber-match of a three-game Atlantic 10 series at Pitt Field. Eight consecutive Spiders reached safely in the decisive inning, which allowed the Spiders to stay alive in the A-10's postseason race.

Austin Reilly lined a two-run single up the middle to tie the game at 4-4, Ryan Grant scored on a wild pitch to give Richmond the lead and Derek Boliek followed with an RBI single in the next at-bat that stood as the game-winner for Richmond. Andrew Lowry finished with two of the Spiders' six hits.

Josh Horn tossed two innings in relief of starter Jared Bard and was credited with his second win of the season (2-2), while Stephen Owens worked the final two innings of scoreless relief to pick up his first career save. Horn and Owens each fanned two, including Owens' punch-out of Mike Beal to end the ball game.

The victory improved the Spiders to 18-25-2 overall, 9-11-1 in the A-10 and kept Richmond within 1.5 games of the final postseason spot with six games remaining. The Billikens slipped to 22-25, 7-14.

Richmond jumped on starter Zach Outman with a run in the first inning as Hank Coogan ripped an RBI triple down the right-field line to score Lowry, who singled to lead off. Coogan's three-bagger extended his career-long hitting streak to 17 games and the senior has had an extra-base hit in three of the last four games.

But Saint Louis pushed runs across in the second and third innings to take the lead, while Outman settled in. Andrew Guerra homered to lead off the second inning and J.D. Dunn followed an inning later with a sacrifice fly to deep center.

Bard turned the game over to Horn in the sixth with two on and no out and both runners scored in the frame, extending the visitors' lead to 4-1. Bard allowed four runs on five hits and fanned three in five innings, but the Spiders got the offense rolling in the sixth and took the sophomore off the hook.

After the Billikens struck for two in the top of the sixth to take the 4-1 lead, it fizzled fast for Outman in the bottom of the inning when eight-consecutive Spiders reached safely on four singles and four walks.

Grant's bases-loaded walk triggered the scoring, followed by Reilly's game-tying two-RBI single up the middle and run-scoring hits from Boliek and Lowry. Reliever George Hebert yielded the Lowry single, but rolled a 5-4-3 double play to end Richmond's highest-scoring inning since plating seven in the sixth versus Temple on April 11.

Outman was tagged the loss (2-7) by allowing five hits and seven runs in 5.1 innings with five walks and five strikeouts. Guerra collected half of Saint Louis' eight hits and finished with two runs and two RBI.

Richmond returns to action Tuesday night with a non-conference game at Norfolk State. First pitch is slated for 6 p.m.