Trojans Roll Past MTSU 15-1

Friday, May 1

Troy

6:00 PM

Troy University

Middle Tennessee

5/2/2009 2:30:00 AM | Baseball

TROY, Ala. ? Coming into their weekend series with Middle Tennessee, the Troy Trojans knew they would have to score runs to compete with the best hitting team in the Sun Belt Conference.

The Trojans got the job done on Friday night in the series opener at Riddle-Pace Field, scoring early and often in route to a 15-1 victory over the Blue Raiders.

The Trojans improved to 26-18 overall on the year but, more importantly, improved to 13-7 in league play. MTSU falls to 32-13 with its worst loss of the year and now stands at 18-7 in league play. Troy closed to within 2.5 games of the Raiders in the league standings.

“Every night is a new night, but we have had consistent good starts by Tyler Ray on Friday's and he gave us another one tonight,” Trojans coach Bobby Pierce said.

Ray, a true freshman, improved to 6-3 on the year by holding the league's best hitting team to just one run on seven hits through six innings of work. He walked two and struck out three in the game.

“Tyler needed to make quality pitches to get out of jams, but he had great command and great poise out there tonight,” Pierce said.

Ray stranded nine runners in his six innings or work and the Blue Raiders stranded 13 in the game.

Offensively, the Trojans jumped on MTSU starting pitcher Bryce Brentz (4-3) early, scoring three runs in the first inning and then six more in the third to chase the Raiders' starter. Brentz was charged with nine earned runs while allowing 10 hits. In addition Brentz, who is the Sun Belt's leading hitter, was held hitless in five at bats, dropping his season average 14 points, to .464.

“We were able to get ahead of Brentz and produce some runs early,” Pierce said. “Tonight our bats were fast and accurate and we love getting production from Adam Bryant in the nine hole.”

Bryant had another productive night at the bottom of the order for the Trojans. The sophomore had three hits in the game, scored two and drove in four. Over the last 13 games Bryant has driven in 28 runs from the bottom of the order.

The Trojans jumped on Brentz early when Chad Watson doubled on his first pitch of the night. Miles Hoyle doubled in Watson and then scored on a Brett Henry single. Trevor Tyre then delivered a sacrifice fly to score Ryan Ditthardt for a 3-0 lead.

Troy added six runs in the third inning, sending 10-men to the plate in the process. Ditthardt, Michael Precise and Steven Felix had run-scoring singles in the inning and Bryant had a two-run homer to cap the frame.

The Trojans added four runs in the fifth and two in the eighth to complete the scoring. Charley Williams had a two-run triple to key the fifth inning and Bryant and Williams drove in the runs in the eighth.

The Blue Raiders plated their only run in the fifth when Ben Darlington tripled in Tyler Burnett.

Besides Bryant, the Trojans got three hits from Felix and two each from Williams, Hoyle, Ditthardt and Henry, keying a 17-hit attack. MTSU got two hits each from Burnett, Rawley Bishop and Blake McDade.

The two teams will meet again on Saturday evening at 6 p.m. with Troy junior right-hander Jason Walls (3-3, 4.03) slated to square off with MTSU junior left-hander Kenneth Roberts (5-1, 3.77).