Seton Hall University
Rutgers
Falconi Homers, But Baseball Falls at Rutgers
4/25/2015 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
BOX SCORE (.html) | BOX SCORE (.pdf) 
PISCATAWAY, N.J. -- Senior Alex Falconi (Freeport, N.Y.) connected on his first home run of the season, but Seton Hall's offense generated little more as the Pirates fell to Rutgers, 4-2, at Bainton Field on Saturday.
The Pirates pounded out 12 hits, their most in their last seven games, but could only muster two runs.
Seton Hall starter Shane McCarthy (Fair Haven, N.J.) drops to 4-4 with the loss. The freshman pitched six innings and gave up four earned runs, while striking out two and walking none.
In the bottom of the second inning, McCarthy gave up back-to-back singles, the second of which hit the umpire near second base. A sacrifice bunt moved the runners into scoring position and a ground out plated the first run of the game for Rutgers.
The next inning, Rutgers did damage with a pair of extra-base hits against McCarthy. The Seton Hall right-hander gave up a leadoff double and a one-out triple to Rutgers' Joe D'Annunzio to fall behind 2-0. Tom Marcinczyk followed with an RBI single on the first pitch he saw and the Pirates were in a 3-0 hole.
Falconi led off the fifth inning with his second career home run to cut the Scarlet Knights lead to 3-1.
Ryan Ramiz (Freehold, N.J.) and D.J. Ruhlman (Belle Mead, N.J.) led off the top of the sixth inning with back-to-back singles. Rutgers threw out Ramiz at third base for the first out as the Pirates attempted a double steal. With two outs, Tyler Boyd (Succasunna, N.J.) singled through the right side to score Ruhlman and cut the Rutgers lead to 3-2.
But Rutgers (15-26-1) got the run right back in the bottom of the inning as they struck for three singles off McCarthy to boost their lead back up to two runs, 4-2.
Seton Hall (19-17) got its offense going again in both the seventh and eighth innings, but left two men on base in both innings. In all, The Hall left nine men on base.
Joe DiBenedetto (Staten Island, N.Y.) ran his scoreless inning streak to 12.1 innings with two more sparkling frames today. The sophomore pitched to the minimum over the game's final two innings and struck out one batter.
Jenkins led The Hall with three hits. Both Boyd and Falconi had two hits apiece.
Seton Hall will return to action tomorrow afternoon for the finale of this three-game series, three-location series with Rutgers. The game will be at TD Bank Ballpark in Bridgewater, N.J. First pitch is scheduled for 3:00 p.m.
| LINE SCORE | ||||||||||||
| Team | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | R | H | E |
| SETON HALL (19-17) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 12 | 0 |
| Rutgers (15-26-1) | 0 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | X | 4 | 11 | 2 |
Win - Howie Brey (2-6) Loss - Shane McCarthy (4-4) Save - Christian Campbell (1)
