The FGCU baseball team (3-2) earned a 10-0 shutout victory over LIU Brooklyn (0-4) in the first game of a weekend non-conference series Friday night at Swanson Stadium.
The Eagles needed just two pitchers to toss a clean nine innings. Sophomore Nikolas Bitner (1-0) earned his first win donning the Green and Blue, while junior Trey Vickery collected the first save of the year for the staff.
"This was a good night for us. (LIU Brooklyn) is a good club. They were in (an NCAA Championship Regional) last year, and they returned a lot of guys," FGCU coach Dave Tollett said. "We only had to use two guys (on the mound) and both of them did a good job. I'm very happy for both of them. Offensively, you can never be upset with 10 runs on a Friday night. We've still got some work to do to become more consistent, but we put together some quality at-bats tonight."
FGCU cranked out 13 hits to just four from the visitors. Senior Keith Stevens, junior Richie Garcia and senior Eric Gonzalez all finished with a pair of hits. Garcia totaled two RBIs and a run, while junior Anthony Gonnella drove in two teammates and scored once. Garcia and fellow juniors Alex Brait and Marc Coffers all scored twice.
Garcia opened the scoring with a solo home run in the second inning. Later in the inning, Gonnella drove in a run on a single and later was able to touch home from third while sophomore Christian Proffitt was being caught in a rundown. The Eagles blew the game open with a four-spot in the third. The RBIs were scattered throughout the lineup and were attributed to Brait, Stevens, Garcia and Gonnella.
A trio of insurance tallies from the home team in the seventh and eighth would complete the scoring.
Bitner lasted 5.1 innings and gave up just three hits and three walks, while striking out four. Vickery pitched the final 3.2 innings and allowed just one hit and two walks, while issuing one punchout.
The four hits from the Blackbirds were sprinkled between Tim Bechtold, Gregory Vaughn, Brock Hallum and Joe Mercadante. Vaughn roped a one-out triple in the sixth but was stranded at third thanks to a double play.
Starting pitcher Zach Pederson (0-2) was tagged with the loss after conceding seven runs on eight hits in 3.0 innings of work. He struck out four and walked one. Nick Torres tossed a clean 3.0 frames in relief, and Anthony Rupp, Jonathan Schreier and Frank Cerillo combined to allow three runs on four hits in the final 2.0 frames.
FGCU has now scored double-digit runs in three of five games to open the new campaign. The 48 runs through the first five games is the hottest start to a season for the Eagles since 2010 (49).
Up Next:
The series will continue at noon Feb. 23. The Saturday tilt has been pushed back an hour from the original started time of 11 a.m. The Blackbirds are off to a slow start this season, but they won the Northeast Conference Championship last year and advanced to an NCAA Championship Regional. The weekend games will be the first in school history between the two programs.
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