In the bottom of the ninth, senior Cam Krzeminski drew a bases-loaded walk that brought in classmate Marc Coffers as the FGCU baseball team (2-6) walked off Eastern Michigan (1-6) with a 3-2 win on Tuesday night at Swanson Stadium.
Trailing by 2-1 as late as the eighth, the Eagles used a two-run comeback over the course of the final two innings to surpass the visiting Eagles of the north.
"I thought we played better tonight," head coach Dave Tollett said. "We'll take the win. But we still need to get the bottom of the order going. I'm concerned with what happens when we roll things around. The whole plan (for this season) was to play a tough schedule to get us better for conference play. We need to find opportunities to get better."
Up until Krzeminski's heroics, sophomore Joe Kinker had been pushing the Eagles along from the batter's box. He contributed two of the team's three RBI and finished the night 1-for-2 at the plate.
In the bottom of the second, he sent his first homerun of the year over the wall in left field to hand the home team an early 1-0 lead.
After going down in order for three-consecutive innings, EMU finally put its first baserunner on in the fourth. A two-out, RBI single plated their first run of the night and the remaining Eagles on the base paths threatened to do more damage, but FGCU's starter Ronaldo Gallo came back with a strikeout for out number three.
Junior Brandon Dorsey worked his way over to third base in the bottom half of the inning, but the home team was unable to regain its lead. The same was true for sophomore Hunter Fornari, who made it to third base in the bottom of the fifth but he was also stranded as the inning came to a close.
Gallo eventually handed the ball over to junior Gus Carter after tossing 4.1 innings in his first career start. He finished his outing with four strikeouts and allowed just one earned run on two hits.
Carter made it through his first frame unscathed, but EMU's second RBI single of the night handed the visitors their first lead of the game in the top of the sixth as they earned a 2-1 edge. While the southpaw settled back in and later notched the first two outs of the seventh, the Eagles called senior Hunter McGarry out from the bullpen to take over.
A sac fly off the bat of Kinker in the eighth tied the teams back up at two runs each. Krzeminski tagged up on the play and the team still had runners in scoring position as sophomore Jalen Townsend was on third, but EMU battled back to minimize the damage.
McGarry sat down all three batters in the top of the ninth, leaving the game in the hands of the Eagles' offense. Coffers and senior Alex Brait led things off with a single and a walk, and after recording the first out of the frame with a fly out, the visiting team intentionally walked Dorsey. That decision loaded up the bases for Krzeminski, who drew the full-count walk that ended the ballgame.
McGarry (1-0) earned his first win of the season and allowed no hits throughout his 2.1-inning stay on the mound.
Up Next:
The Eagles will hit the road this weekend for a three-game series at Bethune-Cookman (4-4). First pitch against the Wildcats will be at 7 p.m. at Jackie Robinson Ballpark on Friday. Games two and three will be played at 6 p.m. and 1 p.m., respectively.
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