March 7, 2009
Box Score
PHILADELPHIA - La Salle Baseball used a familiar formula - scoring three first-inning runs - and cruised to its third straight victory with a 7-2 win over visiting Cornell on Saturday at Hank DeVincent Field.
John Malloy - who belted his 10th career home run in the first inning - went 3-for-4 with two runs scored and two RBI, while Jon Gyles also knocked in a pair of runs.
Malloy gave La Salle a quick 2-0 lead with a two-run shot and Gyles made it 3-0 with a two-out RBI double scoring TJ Chism from first. The Explorers scored three first-inning runs in each of their wins at Morehead State last Saturday. In fact, in their last six games, the team that scored first has won all six.
Chism also started the game on the mound for the Explorers and opened each of the first two frames with walks. In the first, the runner was erased with La Salle's sixth double play of the season.
However, in the second, Mickey Brodsky turned his walk into a run thanks to a wild pitch, a balk, and a sacrifice fly by Matt Langseth.
Cornell (2-1) drew a pair of two-out walks in the fourth inning, but Chism ended the frame with his third strikeout of the afternoon.
Christian Schulz (1-0) took over for Chism, who allowed a lead-off single to start the fifth. Schulz got out of the inning thanks to some poor Big Red base running - one runner was tagged out at third, another was caught stealing.
La Salle tacked on three more runs in the bottom of the fifth, started with a lead-off double from Zack Feierstein. He scored on Justin Handler's RBI single, and Handler scored his second run of the game on a Marc Schoch grounder.
Gyles plated his second run of the game with an RBI double to left center - as Chism scored for the second time. Malloy added an unearned run in the seventh.
Schulz went two innings with two strikeouts and no runs allowed, Kevin Fuqua threw the seventh and eighth, struck out two and allowed a run, and Cody Weiss threw a perfect ninth, striking out the last batter of the game.
La Salle (4-3) has now won three straight games for the first time since sweeping Temple (May 18-20) in the last series of the 2006 season. They are next in action at Elon on Monday (6 PM) and Tuesday (4 PM).
