April 25, 2008

Box Score

Emmitsburg, MD - Mount St. Mary's rode four unearned runs in the fifth to a 5-1 win over Wagner in the first of four games between the teams at Straw Family Stadium. The Green & White fall to 16-20 and 7-6 in the Northeast Conference (NEC) while the Mountaineers are now 11-23 and 7-5 in the NEC.

Pitching was the name of the game as there were only two earned runs allowed in today's contest, which was played in a crisp one hour and 53 minutes.

Over the first four frames neither team could get anything going as sophomore righties Kyle Morrison (Middlesex, NJ / Immaculata) and Max Brittenham yielded no runs.

The Green & White finally dented the scoreboard with a run in the top of the fifth after loading the bases with no outs. Sophomore Joe Conforti (Staten Island, NY / Farrell) led off with a single to right field. Freshman Jon Lucas (Hackettstown, NJ / Hackettstown) followed with a single to center before sophomore Kevin Payne (Staten Island, NY / St. Peter's) moved the pair over to second and third with a bunt single to the pitcher. Conforti then scored on a double play to make it 1-0 Wagner.

Mount St. Mary's fought right back in the bottom part of the fifth to take their first lead of the game with four runs. Alex Andrews reached via an error and Shane Eyler walked before Drew Counselman laced a two-out two-run double off the left-center wall to score the pair. Josh Vittek followed with a two-run home run to left-center to make it 4-1.

Mount pushed across another run in the bottom of the seventh to extend its lead out to 5-1. Vittek doubled with one out before scoring on a throwing error.

Over the final four innings, the Green & White could only muster two baserunners, stranding both.

Morrison (3-3) was the tough-luck loser, surrendering just four unearned runs on seven hits while striking out three over 6.0 solid innings.

Brittenham improved to 3-4 on the year, yielding one run on six hits while striking out five, against no walks, in a 9.0 inning complete-game effort.

Lucas led Wagner going 2-3 while sophomore Vin Avella (Matawan, NJ / CBA), Conforti, freshman Brian Martutartus (Carlsbad, CA / La Costa Canyon) and Payne all recorded hits.

Vittek went 2-3 with his league-leading 12th home run to pace the Mount-attack, which recorded nine hits.

Tomorrow's doubleheader between the two teams has been pushed up to 11:00 am. Live stats of both games can be view via the GameTracker feature on the Wagner Athletics website