March 14, 2008

Box Score

QUEENS, N.Y. - Senior pitcher George Brown had a career-high 10 strikeouts to lead the St. John's baseball team to a 9-2 win over Albany. Brown (3-0) allowed just one run over 6.0 innings and surrendered just three hits. The southpaw struck out the side once and had two strikeouts in an inning three times. Greg Hopkins had three RBI to lead the offense for St. John's (10-4) and was one of four players to have two hits on the day. Albany falls to 3-8-1 on the year.

Brown struck out the first two batters of the game to set the tone for his outing. The Red Storm offense did its part in the bottom of the inning as Daniel Benedetti got things started with a one-out single. Paul Karmas walked with two outs and Hopkins followed with a two RBI double.

Brown notched two more strikeouts in the second and struck out the side in the third inning to surpass his previous career-high of six strikeouts. The lefty retired the side in order in the fourth and fifth innings as well to retire ten consecutive batters.

St. John's opened up the game in the bottom of the fourth with six runs to take an 8-0 lead. Jeff Grantham reached on an error to lead off the inning and Gil Zayas singled. Michael Aicardi moved both runners up with a sacrifice bunt and Gino Matias plated Grantham with an RBI groundout. Brian Kemp then brought in Zayas with an RBI single. Benedetti reached on an error and ended up on third after a throwing error that also allowed Kemp to come home. After Chris Anninos walked, Karmas doubled to bring home Benedetti. Hopkins then had an RBI infield single to plate Anninos, but an errant throw to first allowed Karmas to also score.

In the sixth, Brown hit Jaime Leibowitz with a pitch to open the inning. Leibowitz advanced to second on a groundout and stole third before coming home on a David West RBI single.

The Red Storm got the run right back in the bottom of the inning, however, as Benedetti doubled with one out and came home on a two-out RBI single by Karmas.

Miguel Valcarcel replaced Brown on the hill for St. John's in the seventh and kept Albany at bay for two innings before the Great Danes plated a run in the ninth. After a pair of walks, Tom Zink singled to load the bases. Ryan Gugel then singled with one out to plate a run, but Zink was caught too far off of second base and was thrown out. Valcarcel then induced a ground out to end the game and pick up his first career save.

Notes: Kemp extended his hitting streak to 11 games ... Matias now has a six game hitting streak ... Brown has had six strikeouts on two previous occasions... Karmas notched his seventh career multi-hit game.