FORT MYERS, Fla. - It was Senior Day for Florida Gulf Coast University baseball, but in many ways, it was a throwback weekend.
Justin Henschel worked seven scoreless innings and
Lucas Hartman was perfect over the final two as the Eagles defeated Eastern Kentucky University 5-0 Sunday afternoon at Swanson Stadium, clinching an Atlantic Sun Conference Tournament berth for FGCU.
Over the 25 innings played in the series, FGCU (25-24, 17-10) allowed just three runs in the series, with only two of them earned. The Green and Blue allowed 12 hits over that span and just seven walks in the series.
"It's been a long time," FGCU head coach
Dave Tollett said. "That's the way we used to pitch here at FGCU. It's so good to see. It's taken us a while to figure it out. Some guys have worked their way back into it, which is all part of it. But that's a pretty good weekend on the mound."
Runs were at a premium in the game. While Swanson Stadium is normally a park that is windswept, there was hardly a scant of wind in the air as fly balls that would have threatened to get out of the park throughout the first two games instead died lazily in the outfield.
That didn't prevent the Eagles from finding a way to send balls out of the yard, with two freshmen stepping up on Senior Day. After
Mac Moise walked for the 29th time this year,
Evan Dempsey connected on a 2-0 pitch to give the Eagles a 2-0 lead.
In the third, a wild sequence of events led to a homer by
Charles Davalan. On the first pitch of his at-bat, Davalan sent a towering drive down the line in right that went out for a solo homer; however, the umpires would confer and Davalan was brought out of the dugout and back to the plate as the result was changed to a foul ball. Undaunted, Davalan would come back to the plate to resume his plate appearance. This time, he would hit a deep drive to right that cleared the fence almost 40 feet to the left of the foul pole. The eighth homer of the year for the freshman made it 3-0 for the Eagles.
"They're two tremendous players," said Coach Tollett of the two freshmen. "Those were two really big hits, and we needed them. We haven't been swinging the bat well the last two days, so for two freshmen to step up and get us ahead and let our pitching and defense do the rest was important."
That would be more than enough for Henschel. He would need only 79 pitches to get through seven innings of work. Henschel would walk one and strike out four while allowing just three hits to the Colonels.
The Eagles would provide Henschel with two runs as a going away present in the bottom of the seventh. With men on second and third, Moise hit a ground ball to third. The throw across the diamond would go astray, allowing
Robert Moya and Davalan to come home to score, making it 5-0.
From there, Hartman would get the final six outs in the non-save situation to shut the door on the series for FGCU.
With a spot in the conference tournament now secured, the Eagles can focus on trying to either win the regular season to take the top seed or keep improving their RPI enough to lock down a spot in Pool A of the tournament. Their next chance to improve on that ranking will be this Tuesday when Florida Atlantic visits to close out Swanson Stadium for the season. First pitch is set for 3 p.m.
