Philadelphia, PA – Carter Groen matched the La Salle baseball single-game RBI record with eight as the Explorers' offensive onslaught in the first half of the game proved enough in a 16-11 victory over Lafayette Wednesday afternoon at Hank DeVincent Field.
Groen's eight RBI tie Mike Fuchs (3/7/1999) and Josh Savakinus (4/25/2015) for the most in a single game in program history. The redshirt-sophomore leads this La Salle team with 27 RBI on the early season. Groen matched the program mark by the fourth inning and went 3-for-6 at the plate with a single, double, and grand slam.
La Salle scored 15 of its 16 total runs between innings one through five and added an insurance tally in the seventh on a hot early March afternoon on 20
th and Olney.
In a designated bullpen day, starter
Marco Levari is credited with the win, going a season-high three innings pitched with a pair of strikeouts. Levari tossed a scoreless third inning after La Salle took the lead for good in the bottom of the second.
A back-and-forth affair early on, Lafayette broke the ice with two runs in the top of the first, but La Salle responded with three in the bottom, taking advantage of a pair of Leopard errors with RBI from Groen,
Justin Szestowicki, and
Alec Welshans.
Lafayette reclaimed the lead with two in the top of the second, but Groen delivered the big blow in the bottom to put La Salle in the driver's seat for the rest of the afternoon with a one-out grand slam.
Groen delivered another big blow in the fourth inning with a three-run double, giving La Salle a 13-6 lead.
Daniel Perez added a two-run single in the fifth, which at the time extended La Salle's lead to 15-6.
That was the most the Explorers would lead by, though, as Lafayette chipped away with four in the sixth to cut it to 15-10.
Jayden Novak added insurance by scoring on a wild pitch in the bottom of the seventh to make it 16-10, and Lafayette scratched across one more run in the bottom of the ninth before
Shawn Karpaitis shut the door to prevent further damage.
After Lafayette had cut the lead down to 15-10 with its four-run sixth,
Lucas Edwards entered from the bullpen to pitch the seventh for La Salle and turned in two shutout innings with four strikeouts to effectively thwart any momentum from the visitor's side. The freshman from Delran, NJ, has now pitched consecutive two-inning scoreless appearances out of the pen after a strong one on Saturday at Clemson.
La Salle travels south on I95 Thursday for the Atlantic 10 Conference opener this weekend at VCU. The Explorers and Rams will play Friday-Saturday-Sunday in Richmond, with first pitches scheduled for 1:00 pm all three days. Each game will air on ESPN+.
