April 18, 2010
Box Score
PHILADELPHIA - Jon Gyles pounded out three hits, scored twice, and drove in four runs to lead La Salle Baseball to a 12-5 victory over Temple, Sunday afternoon, at Hank DeVincent Field, which gave the Explorers their third Atlantic 10 Conference series win of the season.
Posting a two-hit day was John Malloy, with two runs, Brian Meagher, three runs scored, one RBI, and Tony Negrin, while Brendan Norton and Jeff Flax each scored a run and drove in another.
On the mound, Cody Weiss rebounded after surrendering a two-run home run to the second batter of the game and retired 12 of the next 14 batters he faced, allowing just two walks and striking out two through four frames.
La Salle responded to the two spot with three of its own in the bottom of the first with nothing but singles. In fact, the Explorers had 13 hits and just one was for extra bases.
Malloy singled to lead off and moved to third on Meagher's single back through the middle. Norton drove him in and moved Meagher to third on a single through the right side, then stole second before Gyles drove in both with his own single.
After a shutdown inning by Weiss, the Explorers put five on the board in the bottom of the second as they sent 10 batters to the plate.
Negrin, Malloy, and Meagher all hit back-to-back singles, the third plated Negrin and with one out, Gyles again stepped to the plate with runners on second and third. He came through again with a single back up the middle and later scored on Marc Schoch's RBI single.
Chris Umstead would also score in the inning on an Eric Kammler single to center. Umstead would score again on a wild pitch in the fourth to put La Salle in the lead 9-2.
Temple (5-26, 2-10 A-10) plated three in the fifth all with two out to pull to within 9-5 as Adrian Perez drew a bases loaded walk, Steve Nikorak singled another home, and Ryan Ferguson also walked a run in before Weiss avoided any more damage with a strike out.
La Salle again responded with three of its own in the bottom of the frame as Meagher scored one on his own. He walked, moved to second on a wild pitch, stole third, then after Gyles walked, scored on a wild pitch. Gyles would come home on a Flax RBI double and he would score after stealing third and coming home on the throwing error.
That would be all the scoring for either team as Kevin Fuqua came in for relief and threw four hitless innings and would have been perfect if not for a hit batter to start the ninth. He struck out one which gives him 141 for his career, fifth all-time at La Salle, while his 211 career innings pitched is sixth all-time. He earned his first save of the year, the fourth of his career, one shy of 10th all-time.
On the other side out of the pen, Steve Visnic threw the final 3.2 innings for the Owls and allowed two hits, just one unearned run, and struck out three.
Weiss picked up his third win of the season and is now 3-3, while Nikorak dropped to 1-5.
The Explorers now match the best A-10 conference start through 12 games with eight wins. At this point, only two other times has a team been 8-4, the 1997 and 1999 teams, and the 1999 squad qualified for the A-10 Championship.
La Salle (13-20, 8-4 A-10) will take a couple days off before facing Villanova in a non-conference game on Wednesday at 3:15 PM in Plymouth Meeting. The Explorers will then get back into A-10 action with a three-game series with Saint Joseph's at Campbell's Field in New Jersey starting Friday at 3 PM.
