Temple University Athletics
OWLS ADVANCE TO LIBERTY BELL CLASSIC FINAL FOR THIRD CONSECUTIVE YEAR
4.2.02 | Baseball
Temple (7-11,2-4) rode the strong performance of starting pitcher, Brandon Bruno and a scrappy offense led by the hot hitting of Joe Lyall to secure a berth in the 2002 Liberty Bell Classic championship.
Losing pitcher, Ryan Higgins, (0-4) pitched well enough to lose, giving up only two earned runs and scattering seven hits while walking one in six innings of work.
The Owls began the scoring in the top of the third inning as Gene Burpoe advanced to first after Higgins threw a wild pitch on the third strike. The out would have ended the inning but Joe Lyall quickly followed with his second double of the game, scoring Burpoe.
The top of the fifth inning looked much like the top of the third for Temple. With two outs, Gene Burpoe again reached base, this time doing himself two better by tripling to right field. Then Joe Lyall singled Burpoe home once again to increase the Owls lead to 2-0.
Temple added another run in the top of the seventh inning when Fred Hilliard brought home Jerome Lopez on a sacrafice fly. Lopez led off the inning by doubling and advancing on a Brandon Lane fielding error. The mishap was one of three Drexel errors on the afternoon.
Joe Lyall continued his wrath on opposing pitchers by going 4-5 with two doubles and two RBI's. Lyall is now 14 for his last 24 and has 13 RBI's in his last four games. The senior is Temple's leading hitter at .423.
The story of the game however was the pitching of Brandon Bruno. Bruno, (2-3) secured his second win of the season nearly going the distance by holding the Dragons(10-17,0-3) to only six hits. Bruno started the bottom of the ninth inning having struck out seven Drexel batters, and walking six. Until the ninth, he allowed no runners to reach third base. However, after allowing a walk to Mike Francis and yielding an infield hit to Brandon Lane, Coach Skip Wilson pulled Bruno in favor of Matt Powell. Powell closed the deal by retiring two of the next three batters he faced.
The combined shutout was the first in Liberty Bell Tournament play since 3/29/00 when Delaware's Vic Sage went the distance shutting out the same Drexel Dragons, 2-0.
Matt Powell recorded his first save of the season as well as the first team save of 2002.
The Owls resume play tommorow, April 3 when they travel to College Park to take on the Maryland Terrapins at 5:00 PM.
