Dunigan's Walkoff Hit Gives Owls Twin Bill Split With Richmond

Saturday, April 21

Ambler, Pa.

11:30 a.m./3:00 p.m.

Temple University

13-25, 1-10

Richmond

20-16, 7-4

Richmond

Temple

Steve Nikorak gives the Temple fan a curtain call after his two-run home run

Photo by: Mitchell Leff

Dunigan's Walkoff Hit Gives Owls Twin Bill Split With Richmond

4.21.12 | Baseball

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AMBLER – To avoid a potential rainout on Sunday, Temple and Richmond played two on Saturday at Skip Wilson Field where the Owls and Spiders split the twin bill. Richmond ran away with game one as it smashed three home runs in the game en route to a 9-4 defeat of the Owls. In the series rubber match, the Owls saw an 6-3 ninth inning lead evaporate, but junior Foster Dunigan came up with the walkoff base hit with the bases loaded in the bottom of the inning to bring home redshirt freshman Connor Reilly to give Temple the 7-6 win to salvage a win in the series.

Game 1: The opening game lasted three hours and was not much of a contest for the Owls. Richmond (20-17, 8-5), came into this series ranked fourth in the nation in home runs and made sure it demonstrated it on Saturday. Matt Zink, Jacob Mayers and Ryan Mallory all brought the long ball in the first game, helping the Spiders down Temple, 9-4.

Temple (14-25, 2-10) trailed 5-0 before tacking on a run in the second inning when Dunigan score redshirt junior Matt Elko on a single.

From that point on, Owls' starter Matt Hockenberry began to find his rhythm and pitched effective for the rest of his outing. Hockenberry threw 111 pitches and made his exit from the game in the middle of the sixth when senior Brant Norlander took the ball.

Norlander allowed one of the two inherited runners on a sacrifice fly, but pitched out of the jam without furthering the damage. He would go on to pitch the seventh inning and would also come away unharmed despite allowing two hits in the inning, which were the only two he let up.

Down 7-1, Temple trimmed the Richmond lead back to a four-run game in the seventh when redshirt senior Steve Nikorak blasted his team-leading third dinger of the year with freshman Nick Lustrino already on the basepaths.

Nikorak finished the game, going 2-for-3 before having a 1-for-3 game out of the leadoff spot in the second game.

After Richmond increased its advantage to a 9-3 lead, Nikorak drove in another run on a single to score junior Jordan Queja from second base following his steal.

Game 2: Freshman southpaw Patrick Peterson went to work on the mound for Temple in the series finale, while head coach Ryan Wheeler made several changes to his lineup, which proved to be effective early on.

The Owls threw up a four spot in the second inning, compliments of RBI triples from junior Allen Stiles and Nikorak, which accounted for two of the four runs. Before Nikorak's third three-bagger of the year, David Hall continued to show consistency at the plate, as he drove in Stiles on a base hit.

The bleeding continued into the fifth when Henry Knabe's single scored senior Jabair Khan.

Richmond found ways to crawl back into this ballgame and eventually chase Peterson out of the game in the seventh.

The Spiders put up a run in the fourth and fifth innings to cut the Owls' advantage to a three-run game, but Khan had his own way of responding.

On a 1-0 pitch, he drilled the ball all the way out to the deepest point of the center fields warning track and just out of the reach of Matt Zink. Khan rounded the bases hard and when he came toward third, Wheeler waved him around all the way, allowing him to cross the plate for the inside the park home run, which gave Temple a 6-2 lead.

Redshirt senior Steve Visnic came in the middle of the seventh inning, ending Peterson's strong afternoon, in which he went 6.1 innings where he allowed two earned runs on seven hits.

Visnic struck out Jacob Mayers and Bryan Conway to strand the two runners he inherited.

Freshman Eric Peterson came on in the eighth inning and looked to keep the win intact for his twin brother. In the seventh, Eric looked just as impressive as his brother was earlier in the day, as he dealt two strikeout and got a fly out while surrendering a double.

However, thing became frightening in the ninth. Richmond led off the inning with back-to-back singles before Adam McConnell walked to jam the bases with no outs. Peterson began to work his way out of the situation, as he was able to get Mayers to ground into a fielder's choice, which allowed Peterson to throw Mike Small out at the plate.

With the bases still loaded, a walk to Chris Cowell forced in a run, marking the end to Peterson's outing.

Senior Brian Sustersic took over. He let up a single to Phil Ruzbarsky, allowing two runs to score, which tied the ballgame at six and voided the win for Patrick Peterson. Sustersic would find a way out of the jam without any more harm being done.

Going to the bottom half of the inning, Temple was in a position where it was eager to make a statement.

After being walked off on multiple times this season, the Owls made sure they took out the aggravation on the Spiders in the ninth.

Reilly got it started with a single through the left side. On Bobby Heitzman's sacrifice bunt, he moved into scoring position with Nikorak at the plate.

After stomping on them enough over the course of the two games, the Spiders chose to intentionally walk Nikorak. On the pitch out, Conway missed the ball, which allowed Reilly to move all the way over to third on the passed ball.

Runners stood on the corners for Lustrino, who was, surprisingly, also intentionally walked, setting up a bases loaded situation for Dunigan, who came through on a 1-2 pitch, as he singled to score Reilly for the 7-6 walkoff win.

Temple (14-25, 2-10) will wrap up its current eight-game road swing on Tuesday afternoon at 3:00 p.m. when they host Big 5 rival Villanova for a midweek non-conference game.