April 11, 2008

Box Score

XENIA, Ohio - A pair of home runs off the bat of Marshall MacDonald were not enough for Dayton in a 9-4 loss to Saint Joseph's during the opener of an Atlantic 10 baseball series on Friday evening. Although Friday's game was moved to Xenia's Athletes in Action Field, UD (16-15, 2-8 A-10) and SJU (13-19, 5-5 A-10) will resume their series at Time Warner Cable Stadium on Saturday at 11 a.m. ET.

MacDonald finished 2-for-4 with solo home runs to leadoff the sixth and eighth innings to pace a Flyer offense that pounded out 11 hits on the evening. He was one of just two Flyers to tally at least two hits in the game.

Scott Dunwoody was 2-for-4 with a double while Kevin Miller had a two-base hit of his own and a RBI on a sacrifice fly in the third inning for Dayton.

Senior Alex Dye (2-1) suffered his first loss of the season after surrendering eight runs on nine hits. He struck out six and walked four in 7.2 innings pitched.

After Chris Beesley gave up an RBI single to the only batter he faced, Ryan Hill came on to throw 1.1 innings of relief and allowed one run on two hits with one strikeout.

Saint Joseph's started the scoring in the third inning by taking advantage of a pair of singles and a walk to load the bases with two outs. Ben Wendle then sent a 2-0 pitch over the right centerfield wall for a grand slam home run to give the Hawks a 4-0 lead.

Dayton got one back in the bottom of the frame with a run of its own that began when Jimmy Roesinger hit the second pitch of the frame into right field. After a gust of wind blew the ball past the right fielder, Roesinger trotted into third base with a triple. Kevin Miller followed with a sacrifice fly to centerfield to make it a 4-1 game.

Saint Joe's scored two more runs with two outs in the fifth inning on a two-RBI single to centerfield by David Valesente to build a 6-1 advantage.

Marshall MacDonald got the Flyer offense going in the sixth inning with a leadoff blast over the centerfield wall. Jake Hoover followed with a triple that carried over the head of the right fielder and made one bounce before touching wall for a triple. Ryan Nevill then drove in the run with a sacrifice fly to right field to cut the deficit to 6-3 after six innings.

The Hawks added two more runs in the eighth inning before Marshall MacDonald belted another home run to left center to begin the Flyer half of the inning. However, the Flyers would be held off the scoreboard for the rest of the game and SJU added one more run in the top of the ninth for a 9-4 Flyer loss.