March 27, 2012

Box Score

BALTIMORE, MD - Senior Alex Eliopoulos went the distance for the Blue Jays as he led the Johns Hopkins baseball team to a 3-2 victory over Centennial Conference foe, Dickinson, in a true pitchers duel to open conference action Tuesday afternoon at the JHU Baseball Diamond.

The Blue Jays improved to 10-7-2 on the season and 1-0 in the conference while the Red Devils move to 11-6 and fall to 0-1 in the Centennial.

Eliopoulos appeared to be in control of the game from the very beginning. Dickinson's senior, Andrew Sterling, led off the game with an infield single and promptly stole second. After Eliopoulos' first strikeout of the game, Sterling stole third to put a runner 90 feet from the plate with just one out. Eliopoulos remained composed and caught Tyler Rosa looking and got Garrett Horan swinging to close out the inning and leave Sterling stranded at third.

The Blue Jays jumped on senior Sean White early with back-to-back singles from juniors Kyle Neverman and Mike Kanen to lead off the bottom of the first. Senior Aaron Borenstein took the first two pitches he saw from White and got a ball right in the zone that he sent far over the left field fence to bring home Neverman and Kanen and give the Blue Jays a comfortable 3-0 lead in the first. The Blue Jays are now 8-5-1 on the season when scoring the first runs of the ball game.

The Devils would try to stir up trouble for Eliopoulos, but the right-hander never faltered. Dickinson would leave three runners stranded between the second and third innings before going in order in the fourth. Sterling collected his third hit of the game, this time a triple to straight away center field with two outs in the top of the fifth. But once again, Eliopoulos closed the door on Dickinson getting Sam Wachs to ground out to first and leave Sterling on third base.

Dickinson did get two runs back in the top of the sixth. After Rosa reached on a fielding error, Eliopoulos picked up his fifth strikeout of the game getting Horan to chase on a 3-2 count. Jordan Kaufman drew a 3-1 walk to put two runners on base. After a groundout from Ben Sciambi moved both runners into scoring position, Matt Tuneski got a pesky fly ball between the Blue Jays' center fielder and short stop that came out of the glove of the diving senior Mike Musary and Rosa and Kaufman came around to score as they were running on contact with two outs. Eliopoulos worked himself out of the inning though getting pinch hitter Matt Vidal to hit a hard ground ball to the left side of the infield that senior third baseman Joe Hemmes made a great play on to get Vidal at first and retire the side.

The Red Devils left three more runners stranded over the seventh and eighth inning as Eliopoulos collected five more strikeouts over the two frames.

Dickinson was down to its final out in the top of the ninth with the new designated hitter Mike Adams up to bat. Eliopoulos had gotten two quick outs before Adams came to the plate and Eliopoulos slammed the door on the Red Devils getting Adams to swing through three straight pitches and put the game away from the Blue Jays.

Eliopoulos went the distance for Hopkins, giving up just two runs, neither earned, while scattering six hits and four walks. The senior collected a season-high 11 strikeouts on the day, just one under his career high of 12. Eliopoulos now has 186 career strikeouts to move into sixth place in the JHU career record book.

Borenstein finished the day with three RBIs, all on his first home run of the season while Neverman went 2-for-4 at the plate for the Jays.

Dickinson's hurler also finished with a complete game, giving up three runs on six hits and one walk while striking out two. Sterling had four of the Red Devils' six hits.

The Blue Jays continue conference play as they travel to Carlisle, PA to face the Red Devils to complete the season series on Friday, March 30. The first pitch is scheduled for 3:30 pm.