University of Richmond Athletics
University of Richmond
Virginia
No. 7 Ranked Virginia Tames Spiders
03/20/2007 | Baseball
March 20, 2007
UNIVERSITY OF RICHMOND, Va. - The Richmond baseball team had won five of the last six games, but No. 7 ranked Virginia pushed across eight runs in the first four innings of an 11-1 win Tuesday in front of a standing room only crowd at Pitt Field.
The Cavaliers (20-4), who had just taken two of three games from No. 1 ranked North Carolina over the weekend, scored a run in the second, two runs in the third and - after Richmond got a run back - added five more in the fourth. Virginia scored three more runs in the top of the ninth.
Richmond had seven hits and only struck out once, but pushed just one run across on a sacrifice fly by junior Joe Mahoney. That cut the lead to 3-1 in the bottom of the third, but Virginia scored five in the top of the fourth to pull away.
"We've been playing well, we just couldn't get the hit when we needed to today," Richmond head coach Ron Atkins said. "You have to give them credit, they had good pitching."
Mahoney finished the day 2-for-3 with a RBI and senior Alex Wotring also went 2-for-3.
Freshman Matt Trent took the loss for the Spiders, struggling with his control as he walked six batters in 3 1/3 innings. Junior Brian Alas pitched 1 2/3 innings of two-hit, scoreless relief. Freshman Chris Sullivan pitched well in relief, tossing three scoreless innings before giving up three runs in the ninth inning.
"They exploited our freshman pitcher early on there," Atkins said. "He walked some and hit some."
Richmond pitchers walked nine batters and hit three on the afternoon.
"They're a good ball club, you're not going to beat them walking that many batters," Atkins said.
Virginia's Brandon Guyer went 4-for-6 with four RBIs and two runs scored and Mike Mitchell was 3-for-5 with a RBI and run scored. Beau Seabury was 2-for-3.
Cavalier starter Pat McAnaney went five innings, allowing five hits and one run to get the win.
Richmond will host George Mason on Wednesday at 3 p.m. in what was scheduled as the last game of a nine-game homestand. Due to poor weather in the Northeast, Richmond's Atlantic 10 Conference-opening series at Rhode Island has been moved to Pitt Field. Games will be Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
