Georgetown Takes Wins From St. Johns, B.C.

Hoya File Photo The Hoyas have shown improvement over last season (shown above), surpassing their conference win total for the past two seasons. The coaches of the Georgetown baseball team knew that this past weekend’s games against St. John’s and Boston College would tell them a lot about where their team stood at this stage in the season.

They must have liked what they saw.

The Hoyas (8-15, 3-4 Big East) split two double headers, winning the first halves of both twin-bills, losing both nightcaps and continuing a recent trend of winning low-scoring games while falling short in higher-scoring contests.

The Hoyas defeated the Red Storm Saturday 3-1 before dropping a 10-7 decision in game two. Georgetown bested Boston College again by a score of 3-1 on Sunday but lost 8-6 to the Eagles in the second game.

On Sunday, the Hoyas looked to avenge last year’s drubbing at the hands of Boston College when they lost three games by a combined score of 48-10.

“It was a very painful weekend,” Georgetown Head Coach Peter Wilk said of last season’s series with the Eagles, “because before we had [played well] in almost every Big East game.”

This season the Hoyas have remained competitive and did not give up against Boston College.

Sunday afternoon, senior Randy Erwin pitched a seven-inning complete game and senior Eric Santana hit his first career homerun to lead the Hoyas at Shirley Povich Field in Bethesda, Md.

Erwin struck out one and walked three, but never found himself in trouble, effectively mixing his slider and change-up with a good fastball.

“Randy really had them off balance,” Wilk said.

While Erwin toed the rubber, Santana propelled the offense, hitting a two-run, fifth inning homer that gave the Hoyas a lead they would not relinquish.

“He hit it pretty good,” Wilk said. “I didn’t think it was gone off the bat. It was just one of those you say, `okay, keep going, keep going.'”

And it did.

“I didn’t think he had it in him,” Wilk joked.

In the second game against Boston College, Eric Sutton pitched seven innings in an 8-6 loss to the Red Storm. He struck out eight and walked three, giving up five runs, only three of them earned.

Sutton yielded to junior reliever Tony Pina in the eighth.

The turning point in the game came in the top half of the eighth when Eagles’ freshman Josh DiScipio hit a two-out, three-run opposite field double to give BC a 7-3 advantage. DiScipio had fouled off seven pitches with the count 3-2 before producing the big hit.

“It was an epic at-bat,” Wilk said. “You just have to tip your cap to him.”

The Hoyas did not quit, but could not get closer than 7-6 the rest of the way.

On Saturday, senior left-hander Matt Arizin continued his excellent pitching by throwing six innings of two-hit, one-run ball in the Hoyas’ 3-1 victory over St. John’s. He struck out one, walked four, hit one batter and escaped a number of jams with runners in scoring position.

“[The Red Storm] have some pretty good hitters,” said Wilk said. “[Arizin] took the bat right out of their hands. He pitched a hell of a game.”

Junior right-hander Tony Pina pitched the seventh for his third save.

While St. John’s could only muster three hits for the game, the Georgetown bats had only five.

But unlike the Red Storm, the Hoyas were able to string their hits together.

With the bases loaded and two outs in the second inning, sophomore Tony Lee put the Hoyas ahead with a two-run single. Sophomore Jason Boice followed with an RBI of his own, and Georgetown had all the runs it would need.

Arizin allowed a lead off home run in the top of third, but dominated the Red Storm the rest of the way.

“It was one of those crisp games,” Wilk said.

The second game versus St. John’s was not.

Although starting Hoya freshman starter Kevin Field pitched six very strong innings, striking out seven and walking two, but was the victim of poor defensive play by the Hoyas.

On successive plays, Field took his eye off the ball when covering first and did not get off the mound quickly enough to field a sacrifice bunt that turned into an infield hit.

“We could have one that one had we played a little defense,” Wilk said. Wilk went on to state that Field pitched well enough to win.