FGCU Baseball @ NJIT Game One Recap

The FGCU baseball team (30-18, 12-6 A-SUN) came out on the losing side of an 8-4 battle against NJIT (17-25-1, 7-15 A-SUN) on Friday afternoon at Skylands Stadium.

"Obviously, we wanted to come out here and earn that Friday win," head coach Dave Tollett said. "But it's hard to do that when you play the way that we did today. We have adjustments to make before we come back here tomorrow. This team knows how to bounce back."

The Highlanders' bats got hot early in the game as they eventually put up their most runs in a conference match-up since a 9-2 victory over Liberty back in March.

In the opening frame, NJIT tagged the Eagles' junior starter Mason Studstill with three runs and never relinquished their lead from there. Studstill and classmate Sebastian Gruszecki finished the game tagged with four earned runs apiece and gave up a combined total of 10 hits.

After relieving Studstill to start the fourth, Gruszecki ended up tossing the final five frames, which stands as the longest outing of his career.

Despite trailing the whole game, the Eagles did have a few chances to close in on NJIT. In the second inning, freshman Joe Kinker cut the game down to 3-1 with a single that pushed senior Keith Stevens across. A two-out scoring spree brought the Green and Blue up to 7-4 in the fifth, but the Highlanders held on to their lead.

The trio of Stevens, junior Alex Brait and senior Jay Hayes accounted for the three RBIs in FGCU's scoring spurt and combined for seven hits.

This was just the fourth Friday-night loss for the Green and Blue and the second for Studstill (5-2) so far this season. Overall, the Eagles are 8-4 in Friday games.

Up Next:
The teams will return to Skylands Stadium tomorrow at 11 a.m. for a doubleheader. The teams will wrap up the series approximately 30 minutes after the completion of the first game.