Eagles ride Blue Wave to win No. 12
| Final | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | R | H | E | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Tallahassee | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 8 | 8 | 6 |
|
Florida State College at Jacksonville | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (February 21, 2013) - FCSAA No. 5 Tallahassee Community College overcame six defensive errors to defeat Florida State College at Jacksonville, 8-3, on Thursday afternoon in its first of three games in a span of a little more than 24 hours.
Tallahassee will carry a 12-3 record into Friday's home doubleheader against No. 4 Santa Fe College. Florida State College at Jacksonville is now 5-8.
Jacksonville native Dan VanSickle earned the win in relief of starter Patrick Riley. VanSickle (1-0) scattered six hits, allowed one run and struck out five batters over 4.1 innings of work.
Tallahassee staked Riley to a 2-0 lead courtesy of Matt Bahnick's solo homer in the second and a two-out, third inning error by Blue Wave shortstop Mike Reed that allowed James Abbatinozzi to score from third.
Riley took the lead to the fourth and retired the first two batters of the inning, but back-to-back walks, a wild pitch and an error resulted in a run. Jake Desuyo drew another walk - the third of the inning - to knock out Riley after 3.2 innings.
Tobias Moreno greeted VanSickle with a run-scoring single to right-center that plated J.R. Cruess with the tying run. VanSickle eventually worked out of the jam, and the Blue Wave had little success against the righty the rest of the afternoon, managing only an eighth-inning run. By that time, however, the Eagles had opened up a six-run lead.
Tallahassee sent ten batters to the plate in the decisive fifth inning, scoring five times and collecting half of its eight hits for the game.
John Price led off the inning with a single and later scored on Anthony Torres' double to left-center.
Michael Farrell, who took over for Blue Wave starter and losing pitcher Kevin Griffey after the first five batters reached base, uncorked a wild pitch that scored Ethan Petrey with what proved to be the game-winning run.
Later in the inning, Trent Higginbothem added a two-run single then scored on Bahnick's one-out double.
Bahnick was 2-for-5 with two RBI.
Tallahassee scored its last run of the day in the eighth when Petrey doubled home Price.
Price was 2-for-4 and scored twice.
Game one of Friday's doubleheader begins at 3:30 p.m. and will mark the season debut of TCC Athletics' live, in-game blog. The blog, as well as live stats, will be available at www.TCCeagles.com.