University of Richmond Athletics
University of Richmond
La Salle
Winning Streak Reaches Five As Spiders Out-Slug Explorers, 15-10
03/21/2008 | Baseball
March 21, 2008
UNIVERSITY OF RICHMOND, Va. - Thanks to a pair of two-run home runs in the eighth inning from Hank Coogan and Ryan Metzroth, Richmond pulled away from La Salle and won its fifth-consecutive game, 15-10, Friday afternoon at Pitt Field. The Spiders, who are now 10-11-1 overall and 2-0 in the A-10, pounded out 18 hits in the victory.
Metzroth finished two-for-five and clubbed his first homer since going yard twice in the season-opener against UNC-Wilmington. Coogan had three hits, scored three runs and had three RBI to extend his hitting streak to 13 games, while Mike Mergenthaler had a hit and scored a run to stretch his hitting streak to 12. Derek Boliek also had a career-high three hits.
"Despite what the scoreboard said, we did a lot of little things right today," said head coach Mark McQueen. "We made a couple very big plays in the field to save runs, we got timely hitting and we pitched well late in the game."
Kyle Leith pitched 2.2 innings of middle relief with four strikeouts and one earned run to pick up his second career victory. The versatile Billy Barber, who saw his homer streak snapped at five-straight games, and Alex Hale combined for three innings of relief behind Leith to preserve the victory.
Barber did finish two-for-five with two RBI and three runs scored. He blasted a double in the eighth inning that drilled the top of the wall in left-center field, coming inches from leaving the park.
Although Richmond, which led 11-9 after four, took three sizeable leads in the game, La Salle (4-17, 0-2) rallied to tie the wild game three times, but never led in the contest. Richmond led 4-0, but La Salle tied the game at 5-5; then Richmond led 9-5 and the Explorers rallied to tie it at 9-9.
La Salle scored three times in the second inning, but the Spiders answered back with an unearned run in the bottom of the frame. The visitors tacked on two more in the top of third to pull even, but the Spiders dropped another four-spot in the bottom of third to jump ahead 9-5.
Four more by La Salle in the top of the fourth evened the game at 9-9, but Richmond took the lead for good off reliever Joe Vincent to tag him with the loss. Andrew Lowry laced an RBI double to score Boliek and break the third tie and Barber followed later in the inning with a sac fly to plate Lowry.
Richmond will look for its first series sweep tomorrow at Pitt Field at 1 p.m.
