LAKELAND, Fla. – The No. 11 Florida Southern College baseball team set a new season-high in home runs in a 20-6 win against Embry-Riddle on Thursday night at Henley Field.
The Moccasins (33-12, 17-8 SSC) tied their season-high in runs, dominating the series opener. The Eagles (22-23, 7-18 SSC) struggled at the mound with 11 walks by the pitching staff, giving up eight extra-base hits.
Florida Southern had a big game with
Grant Thoroman and
Ahmad Fitts hitting two home runs each, with
Jevin Relaford adding the fifth homer by the Mocs. Fitts recorded his 10
th and 11
th home runs of the season, the first double-digit home-run hitter for the team. A 4-for-6 outing by Fitts led to seven RBI, just ahead of Thoroman's five. Overall, seven of the nine batters in the starting lineup recorded a multi-hit game, with all nine registering a hit. Drawing 11 walks as a team,
Brady Doorey had three walks himself.
Sachem Ramos got his ninth win of the season going five innings. He was relieved by
Casey O'Dell, Ethan Breslin, David Butz, and
Lucas Perez, with each of the four relievers not allowing a run scored, and just one hit over the four innings. Butz and Perez finished the game in the eighth and ninth inning, each striking out two.
Embry-Riddle had 10 hits as a team, three in the lineup with two hits each. The Eagles had three extra-base hits with a homer and two doubles, though scoreless in the final four innings of the game. Harley suffered his second loss of the season, going two innings and allowing nine runs scored.
In the first batter of the game, the Eagles hit a big home run to right field, though quickly matched in the bottom of the first inning with a two-run homer by Thoroman and a three-run homer by Fitts to take a 5-1 lead. The Mocs continued to score, including an RBI double by
Noah Rabin and the second homer of the night by Fitts to go up 8-1 through two innings.
Mikey Scott had an RBI single to score another in the third before ERAU managed to add runs in the fourth and fifth inning. The Eagles added five runs in that span, closing in on a 9-6 FSC lead.
Florida Southern had seven runs scored in the fifth inning, with RBI at-bats by Doorey, Relaford, Fitts, and
Wyatt Campbell. Thoroman also hit a three-run homer, his second of the game, for a 16-6 lead by the Mocs. FSC had the final runs of the game in the bottom of the sixth inning with a Relaford homer, wild pitch, and RBI single by Fitts to take a 14-run lead. Neither team scored in the next three innings, with ERAU only managing a single hit in the final four innings, as the Mocs won 20-6.
The Mocs wrap up their series against the Eagles with a doubleheader tomorrow, May 2, starting at 1 p.m.
