Box Score 1 MELBOURNE A little bit of a rough start to Sunday's game didn't seem to faze Stephen Batman. Instead, he got better as the day wore on, and with the game twice on the line, got Florida Southern through the final two innings for a 7-4 win in the first game of the doubleheader. The Moccasins then rode the arm of another senior in game two, as Eddie Sipple also went the distance with a career-high 12 strikeouts in an 8-2 win that completed the sweep.
Batman surrendered three runs (though only one earned) on six hits in the first two innings, but gave up just three hits the rest of the way in pitching his second complete game of the season. The 5th-year senior from Clermont had a career-high 11 strikeouts and walked just one batter in improving his record to 5-3.
The Moccasins (29-15, 13-8 Sunshine State Conference) had taken a 5-4 lead on an RBI single by Kelvin Clark in the top of the sixth, but Batman still had to work through four more innings to take them all the way through for a win. He made quick work of the Panthers in the sixth and seventh with a pair of 1-2-3 innings before walking leadoff batter Chris Fox to start the eighth with the Mocs still clinging to a one-run lead. The Panthers bunted Fox into scoring position, but Batman fanned Jimmie Koch for the second out and got Ryan McChesney on a fly ball to left.
His teammates then gave Batman two insurance runs in the top of the ninth, the first one coming when Clark started the inning with a triple to deep center and scored when the return throw got away for an error. Tyler Benzel later singled with two out and came home on another triple by Colin Kish, giving the Mocs a 7-4 lead.
Florida Tech (30-20, 11-13) didn't go meekly in the bottom of the inning though and was able to bring the tying run to the plate with one out. A single and a hit batter gave the Panthers two base runners, but Batman finished off the game with consecutive strikeouts to leave them stranded.
Florida Southern backed its senior pitcher with 13 hits, including four by Mike Snyder and three by Benzel, but the first three runs the Moccasins scored came on plays other than hits. They came up with one in each of the first three innings.
Cory Jensen led off the game for Florida Southern with a double, Colin Kaline moved him over to third with a ground ball, and Clark's ground out to second scored him. The second inning played out in similar fashion, this time with Benzel hitting a leadoff double, moving to third on an infield hit by Kish, and coming home on a ground out by Zach Maggard.
The 2-0 lead disappeared in the bottom of the second, however, as the Panthers got three straight one-out singles from Ben Scheffer, Tyler Doughty and Brian Flynn for one run before a two-out single by Fox drove in two more.
In the top of the third, the Mocs loaded the bases on singles by Kaline, Snyder and Benzel and were able to tie the game 3-3 on a two-out Florida Tech error. They re-claimed the lead in the fourth inning when a leadoff walk turned into a run on a two-out single by Snyder.
The Panthers tied the game in the bottom of the fifth on an RBI single by Fox, but Batman retired 12 of the next 13 batters he faced as the Mocs scored three unanswered runs for the win.
In game two, Florida Southern pounded out 14 more hits, with Maggard and Jimmy Correnti picking up three apiece, and Maggard, Jensen, Tony Mitchell, and Austin Chubb all driving in two runs in the 8-2 victory. The Mocs also got another strong pitching performance, this time from Sipple, who went all seven innings, giving up just two runs on seven hits with 12 strikeouts and three walks.
The Moccasins took control early with a four-run third inning when they batted around and got three doubles among their four hits. The first one was by Maggard, who drove in Kish after a leadoff single, and Maggard then scored on a sac fly by Jensen. Correnti kept things going with another two-base hit, and after back-to-back hit batters, Mitchell made it a 4-0 game with a two-run double that nearly left the park.
The Mocs made the Panthers pay for a mistake in the top of the fourth when Maggard hit an infield pop-up that was lost in the sun and went for an infield single. After moving to second on a ground out, Maggard gave the Mocs a 5-0 lead when he scored on a base hit by Jensen.
Held to three hits through the first three innings, Florida Tech got four of them in the bottom of the fourth, including RBI singles by Josh Hinkle and John Fouchet that cut the lead to 5-2. But Sipple (7-4) slammed the door after that, leaving runners at second and third with an inning-ending strikeout, and not allowing another hit the rest of the game. He got his final two strikeouts in the bottom of the seventh to equal his career-high set in 2009 against St. Michael's. The 12 strikeouts were also a season-high for any Florida Southern pitcher in 2010.
Maggard picked up his second RBI of the game in the fifth inning with an RBI single, and Chubb gave the Mocs their final two runs with a bases-loaded walk in the fifth and a sacrifice fly in the seventh.
Florida Southern returns home to end the regular season this Thursday and Friday with a 3-game series against Rollins College. The first game is Thursday at 6:00 p.m., with a doubleheader on Friday beginning at 3:00 p.m.
