Box Score
LAKELAND â€" Florida Southern took the lead early Tuesday night against Warner behind the bat of freshman DH Scottie Withrow, then got hits and RBI all throughout the lineup while six pitchers combined on a 4-hit shutout. It all added up to a 17-0 win over the Royals in which the 16th-ranked Moccasins produced their highest run total in more than two years.
The Moccasins (18-8) ended up with 16 hits in the game, received seven walks and were hit three times by the Royals (14-16-2), who used six pitchers. They did most of their scoring in the third and sixth innings where they combined for 14 runs. Ten different Moccasins had a hit, and Withrow (Seminole, Fla.) was the leader with three before exiting after the sixth inning. Eight players had at least one RBI, with seniors Trey Vavra (Menomonie, Wis.) and Jimmy Correnti (Fort Myers, Fla.) each driving in three â€" and Correnti didn’t even start the game.
On the mound, freshman A.J. Smith (Merritt Island, Fla.) made his first career start and went a pre-determined 4.0 innings for the win. He gave up three hits and got a couple of stellar defensive plays from junior shortstop Casey Eddinger (Crawfordville, Fla.) and junior third baseman Chris Dennis (Rockledge, Fla.).
After that, sophomore Stephen Brooks (Glen Allen, Va.), senior Nick Krolczyk (Coral Springs, Fla.), senior Reid Noah (Lakeland, Fla.), and sophomore Jake Popovich (Danville, Calif.) combined for four innings of hitless relief with eight strikeouts and four walks between them. Senior Steven Burnham (Valrico, Fla.) then tossed a scoreless ninth, working around a leadoff single by Cody Nevils who had two of Warner’s hits in the game, for Florida Southern’s fifth shutout of the season.
Withrow put Florida Southern ahead with a solo home run on the first pitch in the home half of the second inning before the Mocs blew the game wide open with six in the bottom of the third. Those six runs came on just three hits as two Warner pitchers issued three walks and also hit two batters in that frame. In fact, the Moccasins loaded the bases without ever putting the ball in play.
Cole Wheelis, who had pitched out of a bases-loaded, none-out jam in the second after relieving starter Anthony Dovale, put three on to start the third. Two of those were hit batters sandwiched around a walk to Dennis. Withrow then singled down the right field line to make the score 2-0 and junior Joey Miller (Sarasota, Fla.) walked to force in another run. Warner went to the bullpen again, but a one-out single by Eddinger drove in two more runs, junior Keith Curcio (Sarasota, Fla.) delivered a sacrifice fly for another, and Vavra’s RBI single brought in one more for a 7-0 Moccasin lead.
The 6-run third wasn’t even the Mocs’ biggest inning of the night. That came when they scored eight in the bottom of the sixth, sending 12 batters to the plate and picking up six hits. The first seven Moccasins reached base in that inning, which started with a misplayed ball in right field that went for a 3-base error. That runner would score on a double by Dennis, who would later score himself on a bases-loaded wild pitch.
The lead reached double digits (10-0) on an RBI single by Miller, and junior pinch-hitter Kyle Richards (Groton, Conn.) made it 11-0 with his first hit and RBI as a Moccasin. The Mocs later got a 2-run single from Vavra, and a 2-run triple from Correnti, who was in as a pinch-hitter. Those were the final runs of the inning and the lead was up to 15.
Richards and Correnti weren’t finished either. After coming off the bench in the sixth inning, Richards went deep over the left field fence for a solo home run in the seventh, and Correnti added an RBI single in the eighth after a triple by Curcio.
The 17 runs were the most scored by the Moccasins since an 18-0 win over Lincoln Memorial on February 10, 2012.
Florida Southern will remain out of conference this weekend when it travels to West Palm Beach for a 3-game series with Palm Beach Atlantic. The first game is Friday night at 6 p.m., with a doubleheader scheduled for Saturday at 1 p.m.
