Trojans Slip Past LeMoyne 4-1

Friday, March 13

Troy

6:00 PM

Troy University

LeMoyne

3/13/2009 5:00:00 AM | Baseball

The Troy Trojans came up with some late-inning heroics on Friday night to down visiting LeMoyne College 4-1 at Riddle-Pace Field in the first game of a three-game weekend series.

The Trojans improved to 10-5 on the year with the win while dropping the Dolphins to 2-9. The second game of the weekend series has been moved up to a 2 p.m. start time on Saturday. The game was originally scheduled for 6 p.m.

After leading 1-0 for most of the game, the Trojans surrendered the lead in the seventh inning when LeMoyne's Brett Botsford delivered a two-out RBI single.

But the Trojans answered right back in the bottom of the inning. Junior Chad Watson delivered a one-out triple off LeMoyne starter Jeff Tardiff (1-1) and then scored what turned out to be the winning run on a sacrifice fly by Bart Pettus.

The Trojans got some insurance in the eighth when Miles Hoyle his a two-run, two-out opposite field homer. It was one of just five hits allowed by Tardiff in a complete game effort.

“Our scouting report said that he was not a power guy, but that he would fill up the strike zone and get your hitters off-balance,” Trojans coach Bobby Pierce said. “Right now, all of our hitters come into the game off-balance, and he did a good job of keeping them that way.

“Chad finally got the big hit for us on a ball to the gap that he turned into a triple and Bart did a good job of getting him home. Then Miles got the big homer for us the next inning.”

The late runs gave sophomore reliever Drew Hull (1-0) his first win of the year. Hull came on in relief of starter Jason Walls in the seventh inning, but surrendered the lead in that inning.

“Drew pitched well and he made a big play on the bunt in the seventh that kept that from being a big inning for them,” Pierce said. “There are not many guys who can make that play, and he has done it in two straight games.”

Walls allowed just two hits in his six innings of work, but struggled with his control, walking seven. He got a pair of double-play ground balls, one in the third and another in the fourth, to keep LeMoyne off the scoreboard.

The two teams combined for just nine hits in a game that took just 2:24 to play. Pierce said his team will come out tomorrow and continue working to get out of the offensive funk it has been in for more than a week.

“We have to find a way to get our offense back on track,” Pierce said. “We will keep working and grinding until we find that way.”