Temple University Athletics
Temple University
19-32, 7-15
Rhode Island
30-23-1, 14-8
Owls Clobbered By URI, 15-5, In Series-Opener
5.17.12 | Baseball
AMBLER – The final series of the 2012 season got underway for Temple at Skip Wilson Field on Thursday with a crushing defeat from Rhode Island, as the Rams handed the Owls a 15-5 loss.
Rhode Island (30-23-1, 14-8) , who clinched an Atlantic 10 Tournament berth with the win, poured on nine runs over the first four innings to ultimately run away with the ballgame.
The closest the Owls (19-32, 7-15) came to the Rams was in the first inning. After Rhody scored two runs in the top half of the frame on Jeff Camman's double down the left field line that scored the Rams' two runs.
Temple clawed its way back and brought the game within a run when senior Foster Dunigan reached on a fielder's choice to score junior Jordan Queja from third base.
As the Rams went on to tally up five more runs before the Owls could respond, Camman's would also go on to have a big day at the dish, as he finished the ballgame going 4-for-6 with two runs scored and five runs batted in.
It took until the ninth inning until the Owls made a strong threat. After junior Allen Stiles had his second of two leadoff triples on the day, junior Bobby Heitzman was hit by a pitch and Lustrino walked to jam the bases.
A wild pitch with redshirt senior Steve Nikorak at the plate, allowed Stiles to score his second run of the game, before the Owls' third baseman slapped the 224th hit of his career to knock in another run and reduce URI's lead to a 10-point advantage.
With a 2-for-4 day at the dish, freshman Nick Lustrino continued to bat his way towards the top of the Temple leaderboard. Hitting .294 on the year now, he is now 10 points shy of Dunigan from taking over the highest batting average on the team (min. 100 at-bats) and becoming the first freshman since John Marzano (1982) to lead the team in batting.
Redshirt junior Dan Moller made his first start at Skip Wilson Field since throwing his impressive three-hit, one-run, complete game against Dayton back on May 4. Like last week at St. Bonaventure, Moller was hit hard. In Thursday's outing and in his final performance of the season, he was chased out of the ballgame after 3.2 innings of work in relief of redshirt sophomore Ryan Kuehn, who issued one run on five hits and two walks over 3.1 innings of work. Kuehn fanned away two Rams at the plate before senior Brant Norlander fanned away two more over the course of his 2.0 innings of work.
Moller's counterpart and the game's winning pitcher Anthony Pisani who had a microscopic ERA of 1.09 coming into his fourth start of the season, was dominant as he limited the Owls to two runs on four hits over 6.0 frames of work.
Temple and URI will meet for game two of the three-game set Friday at Skip Wilson Field. First pitch time is set for 2:00 p.m.
Team Stats
Pitching:
W: PISANI, Anthony (4-1)
L: Moller, Dan (1-7)
Batting:
2B: ROY, Jeff 1 ; CAPUTO, Tim 1 ; CAMMANS, Jeff 2 ; ADAMS, Milan 1 ; JOHNSON, Sam 1
RBI: ROY, Jeff 3 ; CAPUTO, Tim 1 ; CAMMANS, Jeff 5 ; FORTUNATO, Pat 1 ; ADAMS, Milan 1 ; JOHNSON, Sam 2 ; MULLER, Ty 1 ; HAVERSTICK, Dan 1
SF: ROY, Jeff 1 ; FORTUNATO, Pat 1 ; HAVERSTICK, Dan 1
Base Running:
RUNS: ROY, Jeff 2 ; CAPUTO, Tim 2 ; CAMMANS, Jeff 2 ; STENHOUSE, Kevin 1 ; FORTUNATO, Pat 1 ; LANDI, Joe 1 ; ADAMS, Milan 1 ; JOHNSON, Sam 1 ; MULLER, Ty 3 ; FAMIGLIETTI, Chris 1
SB: ROY, Jeff 3 ; CAMMANS, Jeff 1 ; STENHOUSE, Kevin 1 ; MULLER, Ty 1 ; FAMIGLIETTI, Chris 1
HBP: ROY, Jeff 1 ; CAPUTO, Tim 1 ; CAMMANS, Jeff 1 ; STENHOUSE, Kevin 1 ; FAMIGLIETTI, Chris 1
Batting:
3B: Stiles, Allen 2
RBI: Queja, Jordan 1 ; Lustrino, Nick 1 ; Nikorak, Steve 1 ; Dunigan, Foster 1
SF: Queja, Jordan 1
Base Running:
RUNS: Queja, Jordan 1 ; Heitzman, Bobby 1 ; Khan, Jabair 1 ; Stiles, Allen 2
HBP: Heitzman, Bobby 1 ; Elko, Matt 1 ; Reilly, Connor 1 ; Stiles, Allen 1
