UNF eliminates FGCU 8-2
The FGCU had its baseball season come to a close Saturday afternoon when it lost to top-seeded North Florida (45-15, 16-5 A-Sun) 8-2 in the Atlantic Sun Conference championship.
The game began at 11:03 a.m. and was delayed for five hours and 26 minutes with no outs in the top of the seventh due to lightning in the area. Play resumed at 6:30 p.m. and the Eagles (30-26-1, 11-9 A-Sun) threatened but ultimately were unable to make a comeback as the final three frames took less than an hour.
For the second-consecutive season the Eagles were one of three teams left playing for a championship and ended in the same position as they did a year ago. FGCU played four games this weekend and were affected by approximately 13 hours worth of weather delays. Despite the adverse conditions the Eagles went 2-2, highlighted by stellar starting pitching. Three of four starters lasted at least seven innings on the hill and only one gave up more than two runs. At the plate the Eagles hit .242 as a team with 31 hits that resulted in 12 runs on the board but were undone by 43 runners left of base over the four-game span.
“It was a long week,” Eagles coach Dave Tollett said. “It felt like our games were always affected by lightning or a rain delay so it just seemed like it was a long week and we just ran out of gas. We may have run out of arms too but it is what it is. They played their butts off all week and we were right in it at the very end but couldn’t come up with that extra hit, but that’s baseball.”
Freshman lefty Josh Dye made his seventh start of his debut campaign and tossed 5 1/3 innings, allowing all four runs he was responsible for over the first two frames. He settled in and handled the potent UNF offense over the next 3 1/3 innings. He gave way to Garrett Anderson, who gave up four more runs over one inning on the hill and Sterling Koerner recorded the final five outs for the Eagles.