April 12, 2007

Box Score

BALTIMORE, MD - The #19 Johns Hopkins baseball team pounded out 18 hits and defeated Catholic University by a score of 19-9 on Thursday afternoon in Baltimore. The Blue Jays (18-4) won their fourth straight game as they defeated the Cardinals (14-15) in a game that had been scheduled to be played at Catholic.

Catholic jumped on Blue Jay starter Greg Harbeck for two runs in the first, Hopkins tallied one in the bottom half of the first before Catholic improved its lead to 3-1 with a run in the top of the second. The Blue Jays and Cardinals were then forced into a delay as rain and lighting passed through the area. Coming out of the delay, the Hopkins offense got things going against Joseph Voiro of Catholic.

The Blue Jays tallied four runs in the top of the second to take a lead at 5-3 and would not relinquish it the rest of the way. Highlighting the third was Jonas Fester's RBI double and Jon Solomon's RBI single. Hopkins would add three more runs in the bottom of the third to take a 8-3 lead after three innings of play. Nick Venezia led off the third with his first homerun of the year while Rob Sanzillo added an RBI triple.

Catholic would get one back in the fifth inning as Joseph Maca walked to lead off the inning and came around to score on a Robbie O'Brien single. Hopkins would respond with five runs in the bottom of the fifth inning. Sanzillo walked to force in a run and a couple of errors by Catholic allowed Hopkins to clear the bases.

Hopkins would tally another run in the bottom of the sixth before Catholic tallied two in the seventh and three in the eight to make it a 14-9 game. The Blue Jays recorded their second five run inning of the game in the bottom of the eighth as Tony Margve led off with a pinch hit double and scored on an Isaac Katz single. Nate Adelman walked to force in a run in the inning and Venezia scored on a Tim Rappazzo single. Dan Merzel added an RBI groundout and Joe Borrelli had an RBI single as well in the frame. The game was called due to darkness with two on and one out in the bottom of the eighth.

The Blue Jays went with a pitcher by committee approach as Harbeck threw the first two innings, surrendering the three runs and striking out two. Six different Blue Jay pitchers followed Harbeck to the mound as each threw one inning of work on the day. Voiro took the loss for Catholic as he went three innings and surrendered eight runs.

The seven, eight and nine hitters for the Blue Jays were a combined 7-for-13 on the day with 10 runs scored and two RBIs. Venezia was 2-for-5 with three runs scored and an RBI to go along with his homer while Dave Garber was 2-for-4 with three runs scored. Adelman was 3-for-4 with four runs scored and an RBI. Fester went 3-for-4 at the top of the line-up with three runs scored and three RBIs, all of his hits were doubles. Sanzillo extended his hit streak to 17 games while Solomon pushed his to 11 games.

Hopkins returns to action on tomorrow Friday, April 13th when the Blue Jays travel to Gettysburg. First pitch is set for 3:30 p.m.

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