Georgetown Bests LIU In Sixth Win of Season

Hoya File Photo/The Hoya The Georgetown baseball team has won six of its last twelve games. Senior Hoya clean-up hitter Eric Santana stood in the batter’s box during the bottom half of the eighth inning with a full count, two outs, the game knotted at seven and the leading run on second.

LIU sophomore right hander Dan Barrios, who had thrown a curve past Santana with the count 3-1, came back with the same looping breaker. But rather than taking as he had on the previous pitch, Santana lined the curve to center, scoring Boice and giving Georgetown a one-run lead. The Hoyas (6-13, 1-2 Big East) would score four more before the close of the inning en route to a 12-7 win at Shirley Povich Field in Bethesda, Md.

“You could tell that [the Blackbirds] were going to go with [their pitcher’s] best pitch, which was a curve ball,” Georgetown Head Coach Peter Wilk said. “But [Santana] didn’t try to do anything fancy with it, he didn’t try to pull it. He just took it up the middle.

“It was a great job of hitting. I didn’t want to go into the ninth tied.”

Boice reached base to open the bottom of the eighth, the fourth time Boice had been on base, doubling in the first, reaching on an error in the third and walking in the sixth.

“You can’t ask a lead off hitter to do much more than that,” Wilk said.

After Boice advanced to second on a passed ball, junior second baseman Mike Green flied out to left and senior pitcher Jim Vankoski grounded out to shortstop. It looked as if the Hoyas would squander a perfect opportunity to take the lead.

But Santana delivered, providing the senior leadership necessary to put Georgetown on top.

“It was a case of a senior leading by example,” Wilk said. “It’s something a senior should do. It was fun to watch. He stepped up and produced.”

Santana’s at-bat opened the offensive floodgates for the Hoyas. Senior outfielder Brian Cassesse followed Santana with a single, then freshman catcher Michael Lombardi continued to exhibit his power, launching a double to left that drove in Santana and Cassesse.

“[Lombardi] hit the ball on the nose,” Wilk said. “It was absolutely ripped.”

After senior outfielder Marc Carlini walked, freshman shortstop Ron Cano got his third hit of the day, an RBI single that scored Lombardi.

“[Cano] is swinging the bat pretty well right now,” Wilk said.

Cano just missed a home run in his second at-bat, settling instead for a double off the wall.

Sophomore third baseman Tony Lee capped the Hoya uprising with a double that scored Carlini. But Cano was gunned down at home on the play by a well-executed LIU relay to end the inning.

“We’re developing discipline to get better pitches to hit,” Wilk said of the five runs on five hits in the eighth. “We’re hitting hitters’ pitches rather than pitchers’ pitches, which we’ve been doing that for about two weeks now.”

With the game seemingly in hand, Vankoski, who entered the game in the seventh, escaped two hits to lead off the top of the ninth. He got a fly ball to left for the first out, then induced a 5-3 double play to end the game.

“He deserves a lot of credit for stabilizing late in the game,” Wilk said. “We had a feeling our bats were going to do it. We just needed someone to go out there and throw up some zeros.”

Vankoski allowed three hits and no runs in 2.2 innings, walking none and striking out none while facing only 10 batters.

“He let the defense work behind him,” Wilk said.

Although the Hoyas did not commit any errors late in the game, they did make four early on and misplayed a number of balls that may have cost them the game against a better team.

In the top of the seventh, LIU senior catcher Mike Early, who homered in the fourth, hit a double that brought the Blackbirds within a run, 7-6. Georgetown’s relay came home rather than to third, allowing Early to advance a base.

Early later scored the tying run.

“If we cut and go three, he’s out by 20 feet,” Wilk said. “He’s dead meat. Dead meat.”

The Hoyas also failed to turn a number of routine double plays and threw to the wrong base too many times, the seventh inning relaying a prime example.

“We made some bone-headed plays early,” Wilk said, “but we picked it up [toward the end of the game].”

LIU got out of the gates early as Georgetown starting pitcher Eric Sutton allowed a solo home run to start the game. LIU put another run on the board in the third after the Hoyas tied it in the bottom of the first on a Vankoski sacrifice fly that missed being a home run by about five feet.

Sutton lasted 3.2 innings, giving up five hits and five runs, three earned. He walked two and struck out two before yielding to freshman reliever Tom O’Connor, who gave up two hits and two runs in 2.2 innings.

LIU went up by four with three runs in the fourth, two of them unearned. But the Hoyas responded with two runs in the bottom half of the fourth on a RBI double by Cano and a sac fly by Lee.

“Our bats overcame some defensive deficiencies,” Wilk said.

The Hoyas added three more in the fifth to go up 6-5. Green and Vankoski each singled, and both scored when Santana reached on an error by Barrios. Lombardi later knocked in Santana on a sac fly.

After LIU took the lead in the top half of the seventh, the Hoyas tied it in the bottom half of the inning. Santana walked, sophomore designated hitter Robert O’Hare, who went 2-4 with a run scored, singled and Lombardi reached on an error by Barrios. Carlini then hit a single that scored Santana, his second of three runs on the day.