Temple University Athletics
Temple Bats Stay Hot In 9-8 Win At Fordham
5.4.07 | Baseball
May 4, 2007
BRONX, NY - Temple plated six runs in the first inning and held off a Fordham club that kept chipping away to take the first game of the Atlantic 10 series, 9-8, on Friday evening at Houlihan Park. Three Owls had three base knocks each, including juniors Stan Orzechowski and Mike Kelch and sophomore Jamie Abercrombie, as part of a 16-hit attack. Freshman Kyle Monahan pitched the final three innings without allowing an earned run for his first collegiate save.
As has been the case for four of its last five games, Temple got on the board in the first inning. And it should be no surprise that the catalyst was Orzechowski, who has opened the game with a base-hit for the third straight contest. The Philadelphia native tripled to center to start things off on Friday and later scored on a wild pitch. Sophomore Sean Barksdale had a RBI-single in the inning and after a Kelch base-hit, Abercrombie singled home a run to put the visitors ahead, 3-0.
Freshman Matt Heltz then lofted a sacrifice fly to plate a run, and sophomores Carmen Del Mastro and Kyle Obal each drove in runs with singles to extend the lead to 6-0. Orzechowski, who has a 10-game hitting streak, singled for his second hit of the inning to load the bases with one out, but the Owls were unable to push any more across.
After a Fordham (23-20, 11-8 A-10) run in the second, Orzechowski was in the mix again in the third, as the Cherry and White scored an unearned run on the junior's single to short. The Rams plated two runs in the third and could have scored more, but left the bases loaded to keep the Temple lead at 7-3.
Temple (17-27, 8-11 A-10) scored single runs in the fourth, on an Abercrombie RBI-single, and in the sixth, on Heltz's RBI-groundout, but like Wednesday's wild 18-16 loss to George Mason, the bats fell silent after the middle innings. Fordham continued to chip away, scoring a run in the fourth, fifth and sixth innings to cut the deficit to 9-6.
Monahan replaced junior starter Tom Dolan in the seventh, but did not receive much help from his defense as a pair of TU errors allowed two unearned runs to cross the plate. The rookie right-hander induced a double-play to start to see his way out of the jam and got a ground-out to short to complete the frame. He retired the next six batters in order to complete his first collegiate save.
Dolan (6-4) battled for the win, throwing six innings and allowing six earned runs. He did strike out seven batters, but was hurt by five free passes. Cory Riordan (5-4) suffered the loss for the Rams, giving up seven earned runs in five innings.
Barksdale and Obal also had multiple hits as Temple won for the fourth time in its last five A-10 outings.
The win snapped a seven-game losing streak to Fordham. The Owls remain 2.5 games out of the sixth and final playoff spot with eight conference games to play.
The teams will resume their series on Saturday evening at 6 PM.
