SAVANNAH, Ga. – The Fairleigh Dickinson baseball team opened its 2017 campaign with a 6-4 loss to Savannah State University at Tiger Field on Friday night.
The Knights (0-1) were unable to overcome five, first-inning runs by the Tigers (1-0) in the first of three games between the squads this weekend.
Offensively, sophomore catcher
Evan McDonald led the Knights with a 2-for-4 effort, while senior shortstop
Matt McCann knocked in a pair of runs in a 1-for-4 night.
Sophomore right-hander
Corey Zeller (0-1) took the loss for the Knights after allowing five earned runs across his four innings of work. After a rough first inning, Zeller settled in and kept the Tigers out of the run column with three scoreless frames. Zeller finished with five strikeouts on the night before giving way to the bullpen.
The Tigers pounced on the Knights with five runs in the bottom of the first inning. Senior backstop Bernard Barnes provided the big blow for Savannah State with a three-run double, which gave the home team a 4-0 lead. The Tigers tacked on another with a sacrifice fly and held the comfortable five-run cushion after one frame.
After struggling in the first, Zeller limited the Tigers' bats over his final three innings of work. Zeller impressively locked in with a pair of strikeouts in the home second as well.
Sophomore southpaw Trevor McKenna was on the bump for the Tigers and retired the first four Knights he faced before McDonald knocked a single to left center in the top of the second.
The Knights went quietly in the third and fourth before the bats awoke in the fifth inning.
Junior right fielder
Jason Fatzinger kickstarted the fifth for the Knights with a single to right. After a pair of walks by freshmen
James Donlon and
Brandon Seltzer, the leadoff man McCann plated the team's first run with a base hit to left. But McKenna escaped the bases loaded jam by inducing a groundout by
Hunter Reeser to preserve the four-run lead.
Sophomore left-hander
PJ Weeks came on in relief of Zeller in the home fifth and inherited two baserunners but used some crafty pitching to strand both and keep the deficit at 5-1.
In the top of the seventh, the Knights chipped away with three runs on four hits. Singles by Seltzer and
Jorge Iza set the table for an RBI-walk by McCann. Then, pinch hitter
Danny Demetrops came through with a huge knock off the Tigers' first relief man as he knocked in a pair with a single down the left field line.
Now leading by one, the Tigers managed to maintain their edge when right fielder Jalen Atterbury nailed McCann at the plate after he tried to score on a
Bobby Romano single.
The Tigers added on an insurance run in the home seventh and prevented the Knights from threatening over the final two frames to seal the win. Paul Sheffield came on in the eighth and pitched the final two innings for the Tigers to nab his first save of the season.
These two teams are back in action tomorrow when they square off at 2 p.m. at Tiger Field. Demetrops is on the mound for FDU, while right-hander Austin Robinson will take the ball for the Tigers.
