March 31, 2008

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. - Senior Chris Maloney pitched a three hit shut-out to earn his 20th career win in game one of Saturday's doubleheader, 6-0. The No.17 Embry-Riddle Eagles baseball team was able to follow Maloney's win with an 8-4 victory that completed a three-game sweep of the No.11 Warner Southern Royals.

 

The Eagles move into second place in the Florida Sun Conference after adding three conference wins to their record, which now stands at 26-11 and 9-3 in the FSC. The Royals slide down from leading the conference into fourth with a 7-4 FSC record, they are 24-15 overall.

 

Embry-Riddle's pitching staff defended their home turf in the weekend series as Maloney pitched up his first shut-out of the 2008 season as well as his first complete game of the year, holding the Royals to three hits. Maloney faced the minimum of 27 batters in nine innings and struck out three. Maloney allowed just four base-runners in the game (three hits and one walk) but all four base-runners were either picked off, thrown out or eliminated via a double play.

 

The Eagles batters supported Maloney with ten hits, with three Eagles picking up multi-hit games. Aaron Tea led all batters, slamming his second home run of the season on the first pitch he saw from Royal's pitcher, Rene Ramirez, in the bottom of the first inning. Tea was 3-for-4 in the game, picking up one RBI and two runs.

 

Embry-Riddle led 1-0 through the bottom of the sixth inning when the flock tallied five more runs. Both Colin Gray and Eric Ogden picked up two RBI's in the inning on back-to-back hits. James Kissinger tallied an RBI on a single into right field to knock in Saul Meza for the sixth run of the game.

 

GAME TWO

Tea tallied the first run for the Eagles in the top of the first inning after being hit by a pitch and racing around the bases on a Kyle Albright triple into right center field. Albright was knocked in on the following at-bat as Gray hit his fourth home run of the season. Gray increased his team-leading RBI's to 41, and also marked two hits on the day.

 

With the 3-0 lead, the Eagles added four runs with two outs in the bottom of the third. Meza and Alex Guzman scored on a right field single by Branden Roper-Hubbert. Tommy Cauley singled into centerfield two at-bats later, to score Roper-Hubbert and James Kissinger, who had reached on a walk.

 

The Royals handed the Eagles their first earned runs of the series in the top of the fourth inning as Jason Caldwell led off the inning with a ground-rule double over the right field fence. He was knocked in on a single by a Shane Ynclan, who scored in the following at-bat. Eagle's starter, John Keravich, gave up one more single in the inning that allowed the Royals to chalk their third run before ending the inning.

 

ERAU marked one in the bottom of the fourth inning to move it's lead back to five before the Royals attempted to create another run on offense. With two men on base, Corey Bevis came into pitch for the Eagles and held WSC to their final run of the game.

 

Varnum made his 17th appearance of 2008, striking out three in the final inning to close out the game.

 

Guzman went 3-for-3 in the second game picking up one RBI and scoring one run. Albright scored two runs in the contest, with one hit and one RBI. Roper-Hubbert went 2-for-3 in the game with two RBI and one run.

 

The Blue and Gold will return to action on Tuesday, hosting rival Flagler College on Tuesday at 6 p.m. The Eagles will continue the week by playing an exhibition game against the Daytona Cubs at Jackie Robinson Ballpark on Wednesday at 7:05 p.m.