Trojans Drop 2nd Straight to FIU

Saturday, March 7

Miami, Fla.

5:00 PM

Troy University

Florida International

3/7/2009 6:00:00 AM | Baseball

MIAMI ? The Troy Trojans came up short against FIU on Saturday night at University Park as they fell 1-0 to the Panthers in Sun Belt action.

Troy (7-4, 0-2 SBC) got a strong pitching performance from junior Jason Walls, but for the second straight night could not get hits in critical situations. Despite FIU (6-2, 2-0 SBC) scoring just one run, the Trojans could not convert with two base runners in the ninth and no outs.

“You have to give credit to FIU. Their pitcher threw a complete game shutout against us tonight. It is obvious at this point of the season that we are struggling to get some things going offensively,” head coach Bobby Pierce said.

“You also have to give credit to Jason Walls for a good game. He did everything he possibly could to give us a chance to win. We just have to do a better job offensively.”

Walls tossed six innings of two hit ball, but committed two costly errors on pick-off attempts, including one right behind a Bart Pettus errors at shortstop in the sixth inning. FIU's Ryan Mollica followed up the pair of errors with a groundout to advance the runner to third and then Steven Stropp brought him home for the Panthers' lone run with an RBI single.

Troy's best chance came in the top of the ninth, when Pettus was hit by a pitch to start the inning. Steven Felix added a single back up the middle to give Troy two on with no outs. The 3-4-5 hitters for Troy then subsequently recorded three straight outs to strand the base runners and end the ball game.

Tom Ebert tossed a complete game shutout for FIU with nine strike outs and no walks. He allowed just four hits and used 103 pitches to complete nine innings of work.

The Trojan bullpen once again performed well. Drew Hull, Jordan Mathers and Chris Sorce limited FIU to just two hits over the final two innings in relief of Walls. Felix finished the game 2-of-4. Brett Henry and Steven Rosado were the only other Trojans to record a hit.

The back-to-back shutouts on Friday and Saturday mark the first time since April 11-12, 1972 that the Trojans were shutout in back-to-back games. They lost 1-0 and 2-0 to Jacksonville State in two straight shutout losses to the Gamecocks.

Troy and FIU will close out the three-game set on Sunday afternoon at 1 pm eastern time. No broadcast of the game will be available. Live stats can be found on TroyTrojans.com.