Offense Clicks as Baseball Cruises Past Wagner, 9-1
4/11/2012 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
BOX SCORE (.html)
BOX SCORE (.pdf)
SOUTH ORANGE, N.J. - The Seton Hall University baseball team erupted for four runs in the first inning and never looked back as the Pirates picked up a 9-1 win over Wagner University on Wednesday afternoon at Owen T. Carroll Field in South Orange, N.J.
With the win the Pirates improved to 17-15 overall and gathered some momentum ahead of their BIG EAST series at Louisville this Friday-Sunday, April 13-15, in Louisville, Ky.
The Hall combined for four hits to bring across four runs in the first inning against the Seahawks on Wednesday. Three different players as junior Giuseppe Papaccio (Nutley, N.J.), freshman Sal Annunziata (Bronx, N.Y.) and senior Dale Anderson (Alberta, Canada) all came through with RBIs during the big inning.
The Pirates scored twice more in the second to extend the lead to 6-0. Freshman D.J. Ruhlman (Belle Mead, N.J.) led off the inning with a hard-hit single up the middle before sophomore Zack Granite (Staten Island, N.Y.) drove him home with a triple to right-center field.
Granite's big swing signaled the end of the day for Wagner starter Nick Pavia, but the SHU offense was not done producing as junior Mike Genovese (Livingston, N.J.) drove in Granite with a sacrifice fly to right field.
Anderson scored on a wild pitch in the bottom of the third to give Seton Hall a 7-0 lead before Wagner answered with its only run of the game, an unearned tally in the top of the fourth. After Seahawk shortstop Eddie Brown reached base on an infield single, left fielder Jayson Keel doubled down the left field line.
A crisp relay into SHU catcher Dillon Hamlin (Colts Neck, N.J.) resulted in a play at the plate, but Hamlin lost control of the ball as he tagged Brown and Wagner brought across its only run of the game.
Ruhlman singled to left field in the fifth inning to score Annunziata and junior Ryan Sullivan (Stony Point, N.Y.) smacked a triple to deep right-center field in the sixth, bringing Papaccio home, to round out Seton Hall's scoring.
Junior Greg Terhune (Washington, N.J.) picked up his first win of the season, scattering five hits over five innings while giving up just the single unearned run in the fourth. He evened his record at 1-1 on the year and lowered his earned run average to 3.79.
After Terhune gave up a double to Nick Dini to start the sixth inning the Seton Hall bullpen stepped up to shut the door on any comeback attempt as the Pirates retired 12-straight Wagner batters to end the game.
Junior Rick Mangione (Orange, Conn.) struck out two batters in two perfect innings of work while freshman Jose Lopez (Cranbury, N.J.) faced three batters in the eighth and senior Benny Mejia (Paterson, N.J.) pitched a scoreless ninth.
Papaccio finished the day going 4-for-4 at the plate, scoring a pair of runs to go along with an RBI. Annunziata was 2-for-4 with two runs scored and Anderson and Ruhlman also had multi-hit days.
