Trojans Fall To Bethune-Cookman 8-4

Friday, March 5

Troy, Ala.

6:00 pm

Troy University

Bethune Cookman

3/6/2010 3:00:00 AM | Baseball

For a second consecutive start, Troy sophomore pitcher Tyler Ray had trouble keeping the ball in the park, giving up three home runs in an 8-4 loss to visiting Bethune-Cookman at Riddle-Pace Field.

The loss for Troy (3-5) was the Trojans' fifth straight, the longest losing streak for a Troy team since the 2006 club went through a six game skid early in that season. BCU (4-7) won its third straight game after dropping seven of its first eight games.

The two teams will play their second game of their weekend series on Saturday with the first pitch slated for 6 p.m.

“We knew that Bethune-Cookman had a good club and they showed that out here tonight,” Trojans coach Bobby Pierce said. “We had a couple of scrimmages this week trying to get our bats going, but it looked as if we went backwards.

“We have to find a way to get back on a winning track. You can't take anything away from them, because they did a nice job when they got into a position to score.”

The Wildcats got off the bus swinging on Friday, with each of the first three hitters getting singles off Ray (1-2) before most fans had time to get to their seats. The sophomore settled down and avoided any further damage in the inning, but then surrendered a two-run homer to Juan Perez in the third.

Troy got those runs back off BCU starting pitcher Ali Simpson (1-1) in the bottom of the inning when Chase Whitley blasted his second homer of the year. The Trojans added two more in the fourth to take a 4-3 lead, but had a chance to get more.

Troy loaded the bases with no one out in the inning, and got back-to-back sacrifice flies from Steven Rosado and Todd McRae, but Miles Hoyld struck out to end the inning, leaving a pair of runners on base.

Overall, the Trojans wound up leaving eight runners on base in the game while the Wildcats left only two.

BCU's good situational hitting paid off in the sixth inning when the Wildcats plated a pair of runs on infield ground outs to take the lead before Emmanuel Castro blasted a solo homer for a 6-4 lead.

The Wildcats put the game away in the eighth, and chased Ray, when Peter O'Brien hit a two-run homer.

Ray pitched 7.1 innings in the game, allowing all eight BCU runs on 12 hits while striking out four. Drew Hull came on in relief to get the final five outs for Troy.

Simpson lasted six innings on the mound for Bethune-Cookman, allowing four runs on seven hits with three walks and three strikeouts. BCU turned to Chris Anselmo for two shutout innings before Perez went to the mound to close out the Trojans in the ninth.

T.J. Rivera led the Trojans with three hits while Whitley and Adam Bryant had two hits each. Matt Wright had three hits to lead the Wildcats, who also got two hits each from C.J. Lauriello, Perez, Castro and Brandon Turner.