Cavalier Baseball Defeats North Florida 10-1
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Feb. 10, 2007
CONWAY, S.C. – The Virginia baseball team continued its strong start to the season with a 10-1 win over North Florida Saturday at the Springmaid Beach Resort Tournament at Coastal Carolina. Sean Doolittle (Tabernacle, N.J.) and Beau Seabury (Mount Vernon, Wash.) each homered to lead a Virginia offense that scored ten runs for the second consecutive game.
“It was nice to see some early runs and that we were able to take control of the game early,” head coach Brian O’Connor said. “We were able to take advantage of our RBI opportunities over the first few innings. Jacob (Thompson) didn’t pitch his best, but had a pretty good outing for his first start of the season. The guys who came in after him did a good job as well.”
Doolittle went 3 for 4 and Seabury went 2 for 2, including their home runs, to pace the offense. Brandon Marsh (Alpharetta, Ga.), Brandon Guyer (Herndon, Va.) and Patrick Wingfield (Winchester, Va.) all had two hits as well for Virginia, who had 13 hits as a team in the game.
Thompson pitched five shutout innings to pick up the win. He allowed just two hits, while striking out eight in his first appearance of the year. Neal Davis (Baltimore, Md.), Robert Poutier (Yorktown, Va.), Alex Smith (Virginia Beach, Va.), and Jake Rule (Waynesboro, Va.) each pitched an inning of relief, combining to allow no earned runs on two hits over the final four innings.
The Cavaliers (2-0) took the lead with three runs in the top of the second. Guyer led off with an infield single before stealing second. Farrell was hit by a pitch and both he and Guyer moved into scoring position on Seabury’s sacrifice bunt. Wingfield drove in the first Cavalier run with a flare single into right field that scored Guyer. Henry drove in Farrell with a grounder to first, and Farrell beat the throw to the plate. Wingfield scored the third run of the inning on Miclat’s sacrifice fly to center.
Virginia added a run in the third inning. Doolittle led off with a single and advanced to second on a wild pitch. After moving to third on a fly out, he scored on another wild pitch.
In the top of the fourth, the Cavaliers scored four runs to make the score 8-0. Seabury led off with a double down the left field line, then advanced to third on Wingfield’s infield single. Henry’s groundout scored Seabury. Miclat later reached on a fielder’s choice and scored on Marsh’s RBI single. Doolittle followed with a two-run home run over the right center field wall.
Seabury added to the lead in the top of the fifth inning with his two-run home run to left, making the score 10-0. North Florida (0-2) got on the scoreboard with an unearned run in the eighth inning.
Virginia scored double-digit runs for the second consecutive game to open the season. The last time the Cavaliers scored double digit runs in the first two games of the year was in 1997, when they scored ten or more runs in the first five games of the season.
The Cavaliers will conclude play at the Springmaid Beach Resort Tournament on Sunday, when they play host Coastal Carolina. Game time at Charles Watson Stadium is set for 11:30 a.m. Matt Packer is slated to start for Virginia, while John Mariotti is the scheduled starter for the Chanticleers. Coastal Carolina is 2-0 on the season, after defeating North Florida 8-1 on Friday and Elon 13-0 on Saturday.