Robert Moya connected for his fourth home run of the week,
Davian Garcia pitched six strong innings, and
Jake Bunz earned a three-inning save as Florida Gulf Coast University defeated the University of North Florida 6-2 Thursday night in Jacksonville, Fla., to start an Atlantic Sun Conference series.
The Eagles (27-24, 18-10 ASUN) moved three games over .500 for the first time this season and are guaranteed to finish the regular season over .500. They did so thanks to another strong Friday night start from Garcia, who struck out six batters over six innings, allowing just two earned runs on four hits. He closed out his outing by retiring the final nine batters in a row.
FGCU took a 2-0 lead in the third thanks to a one-out solo homer by
Mac Moise, his ninth of the year, and a bloop single by
Jacob Lojewski that scored
Ian Farrow. The Ospreys (21-28-1, 11-15-1 ASUN) answered back with two runs of their own in the home half to tie the game, 2-2.
Evan Dempsey would put the Eagles back on top in the fifth as
Evan Dempsey turned on a 1-1 pitch and ripped it all the way to the wall in right, scoring Farrow to give the Eagles a 3-2 lead. Garcia would need just nine pitches to get through the bottom of the inning to get the FGCU bats back to the plate.
That would set up Moya to tack on an insurance run in the sixth. After tying the program record with three homers in Tuesday's win over Florida Atlantic, Moya continued his hot play as he ripped a 2-0 pitch over 420 feet over the wall in left to make it a 4-2 game. Of his four homers this week, this was Moya's first that went to his pull side.
In the eighth, the Eagles would salt the game away with a big two-out hit.
Trevor Kole lined a shot deep to right that went over the right fielder's head to the wall. Moya, who drew a walk with two out, and
Javier Gorostola who singled one batter later, came home to score to give the Eagles a 6-2 advantage.
That would be more than enough for Bunz. The hurler would walk his first batter in the seventh, but then retired the next nine men in order. He would record his third strikeout of the outing to get the final out of the game, giving the Eagles a win by four.
The Eagles had eight hits, but no one had more than one hit. Kole was the only Eagles with a multi-RBI game thanks two his double. Dempsey extended his hitting streak to 18 games, with Farrow and
Charles Davalan extending their games reached safely streaks to 26 and 25, respectively.
With a win streak at three, FGCU will continue the series Friday at 6 p.m. in Jacksonville.
