Baseball Completes Suspended Game; Loses 8-2 to Saint Louis

Saturday, March 24

St. Louis, Mo.

1:00 p.m.

Temple University

10-12, 0-1

Saint Louis

17-5, 1-0

Temple

Saint Louis

Baseball Completes Suspended Game; Loses 8-2 to Saint Louis

3.24.12 | Baseball

Box Score

ST. LOUIS, Mo. – Temple and the Saint Louis Billikens resumed play in the top of the seventh inning with two outs and Elijah Yarborough at the plate for the Owls, who trailed 8-2 at the Billiken Sports Center. The completion of the game was put on hold until Saturday afternoon due to a second rain delay called on Friday night. Saint Louis maintained its 8-2 lead for the final 2.1 innings to defeat the Owls.

Sophomore Matt Hockenberry (3-1) suffered his first loss of the season, while Alex Alemann improved to 5-0 for Saint Louis. Temple falls to 10-12, as the Billikens set a school record b y winning their 11th consecutive game to improve to 17-5 on the year and 7-0 at home.

Ryan Davis made his second appearance of the season for the Owls when the game resumed. In the eighth, Davis pitched a scoreless inning to avoid any more damage for Temple.

Facing one of the top pitchers in the nation in Saint Louis' Alemann, the Owls swiped seven hits and two runs off the Billiken right hander who came into the game ranked fifth in the nation with an ERA of 0.74 and allowing an average of just four hits a game.

Temple fell behind, 6-0, before getting on the board in the third inning when freshman Nick Lustrino scored on a fielder's choice to short stop by Jordan Queja.

The Billikens grabbed the six-run lead back in their half of the third inning when they scored a run, but redshirt junior Matt Elko cut back into the deficit in the fourth inning when he led off the inning with a double to center before scoring later in the inning when Lustrino grounded into the fielder's choice.

Saint Louis wasted no time getting out to a large lead and giving Alemann plenty of runs to work with. Owls' starter Matt Hockenberry nailed the first two batters he faced before walking Alex Kelly to load the bases with no one away. On a 3-2 pitch, Steven Fernandez smashed a grand slam to put SLU up, 4-0 with nobody out.

With two outs in the second inning and Mike Levine at second base, Kelly and Fernandez pounded out back-to-back singles to extend the Billikens' lead to a 6-0 cushion.

Ryan Kuehn took over the mound in the fifth inning when the game resumed after the first delay, while Jerry Mancuso lifted Alemann from the ballgame in the sixth inning for the Billikens.

Temple (10-12) and Saint Louis (17-5) will pick up the originally scheduled game immediately following. Freshman southpaw Patrick Peterson will have the ball for the Owls, while righty Clay Smith gets the nod for the Billikens.