Baseball Falls Behind Early, Drops 16-8 Decision To Richmond
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April 4, 2000
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. – The University of Virginia baseball team returned to home action and hosted the Richmond Spiders in the second game of a home-and-home series between the two squads this season. Virginia defeated Richmond by the score of 11-2 in the teams first meeting this year on March 28th, just one week ago. However, the Spiders returned the favor as Richmond handed UVa a 16-8 loss at the UVa Baseball Field this afternoon.
The Spiders jumped out to an early 3-0 lead in the top of the first inning which began with David Reaver (2-3, two runs, RBI) and Manny Cicchiello (2-4, two RBI, two runs) starting the inning off with back-to-back singles. After Vito Chiaravalloti (2-5, four RBI, two runs) reached first base on an error in UR’s next at-bat, Josh Lamberg (1-6, two RBI) hit a RBI-double to center field to score Reaver and Cicchiello to make it a 2-0 contest. Chiaravalloti eventually scored on Andy Denorfia’s (2-6, two runs) RBI to push the lead to 3-0.
The Cavaliers made it a 3-1 game in the bottom of the first inning when David Stone scored one of his two runs in the contest. Stone walked to lead off the inning before he stole second base and eventually scored Virginia’s first run of the game.
Richmond answered UVa’s run with two more runs of its own when Cicchiello hit a RBI-single to right field that scored Matt Reid (2-3, three runs) and Reaver in the top of the second inning to make it 5-1 in favor of UR. The Spiders added four more runs in the top of the fourth inning to pull out to a 9-1 lead when Cicchiello hit a grand slam off of UVa pitcher Eric Christensen.
The Cavaliers added another run in the bottom of the third inning when Jon Benick (2-5, RBI) hit a RBI-double to shallow right field to score Ryan Kalamaya (1-4, two runs), making it a 9-2 contest. But Richmond erupted for seven more runs in the next two innings after posting six runs in the fourth inning an a solo homerun in the fifth inning to build a 16-2 lead.
Trailing by 14 runs after five innings of play, the Cavaliers knew they had their work cut out for them. The Virginia defense buckled down and was solid from the sixth inning on and did not allow another Spider run the remainder of the contest.
UVa finally mustered up some offense of its own and scored six runs in the bottom of the seventh inning of play. Andrew Riesenfeld (1-2, run) started the seventh inning off with single to right field before Kalamaya reached base on a Spider error. Stone then walked in the Cavaliers next at-bat before Robbie Marvin (4-5, two RBI, runs) recorded one of his five (career-high) hits. Marvin singled to right field to score Riesenfeld and Kalamaya to cut the lead to 16-4. Two batters later with the bases loaded, Tim LaVigne (1-4, three RBI, run) hit a RBI-triple to left-center field to score Stone, Marvin and Luis Giraldo making it a 16-7 game. UVa’s next batter, Ben Himes (1-5, RBI) hit a RBI-single to center field to score LaVigne, cutting the Spiders lead to 16-8.
However, that would be all the scoring either team would post the rest of the contest as Richmond came away with a 16-8 win over the Cavaliers.
The Spiders’ Mike McGirr improved to 3-2 as a pitcher this season after getting the starting nod. McGirr threw 6.0 innings innings and allowed six runs (five earned) on nine hits while striking out four batters. Chris Marinak (0-1) was dealt the loss after the RHP threw in just 1.0 innings. Marinak gave up three runs on three hits while recording one strikeout. The Cavaliers used a season-high eight different pitchers in the contest.
With the loss, Virginia’s record falls to 15-18-1 overall, while the win improves Richmond’s record to 14-17 on the season.
The Cavaliers will now travel to Durham, N.C. to face the Duke Blue Devils in a three-game ACC series scheduled for April 7-9. UVa will play at 3:00 p.m. on Friday and 1:00 p.m. both Saturday and Sunday afternoon.