Feb. 25, 2008

Box Score

ROCK HILL, S.C. - The St. John's baseball team defeated Evansville 3-1 to win its third consecutive game and win the Johnny Gill Memorial Tournament. Sophomore Ryan Cole (1-0) picked up the win in his first career start, while Chris Anninos and Jeff Grantham each had three hits to pace the Red Storm offense.

Cole, who made 20 relief appearances and posted a 4-0 record a season ago, pitched 7.0 strong innings. The righty allowed just two hits and set a new career high with eight strikeouts. Cole faced just 26 batters and needed just 90 pitches on the day. St. John's has now seen all three of its starters this season pitch at least 6.0 innings, allow one run or less and three hits or less.

After stranding two runners in the first inning, the Red Storm quickly set the table for a big inning in the second. Aces pitcher Wade Kapteyn, however, escaped the jam. Grantham led off the second inning with a well placed bunt single. Tom La Stella and Daniel Benedetti each followed with singles to load the bases with no outs. After a grounder back to Kapteyn turned into a double play, Brian Kemp was hit by a pitch to reload the bases. The Red Storm, however, would strand all three runners and eventually strand two more runners in the third inning.

Benedetti walked to lead off the fourth and advanced to second on a Gino Matias sacrifice bunt. After a Kemp groundout moved Benedetti to third, the Red Storm put together three consecutive two-out singles. Carlos Del Rosario began the rally by plating Benedetti with an RBI single to put St. John's on the board. After an Anninos single, Tim Morris brought in Del Rosario with an RBI single of his own to give the Red Storm a 2-0 lead.

Grantham opened another run scoring inning in the seventh with a walk. After advancing to second on a La Stella groundout, Grantham took third on an errant pick off throw by Aces pitcher Corey Davisson. Grantham then came home on a passed ball that made it to the backstop.

Justin Gutsie worked a scoreless eighth and retired the first two batters in the ninth before walking two batters and allowing an RBI single to Andrew Gher. Colin Lynch entered the game and earned his second save in as many days after picking up a strikeout with runners on first and third to end the threat and the game.