BOX SCORE

Queen, NY – St. John's showed Wagner why they are one of the Big East's top teams with an 18-9 win at Jack Kaiser Stadium. With the win, the Red Storm improves to 18-10 while the Seahawks are now 11-11.

St. John's pounded out 24 hits on the day and was led by Tim Morris, who was a perfect 6-6 at the plate with five runs and three RBI. Wagner also turned in a solid day at the plate, notching 13 hits as eight different Seahawks hit safely.

The Green & White struck first, scoring three runs in the opening frame. Sophomore Jared Gruccio (Landisville, NJ / Buena Regional) kept up his torrid hitting with a one-out single through the right side. After stealing second, Gruccio was advanced to third on junior Vin Avella's (Matawan, NJ / CBA) single to left. Sophomore Jon Lucas (Hackettstown, NJ / Hackettstown) followed with a RBI-single, scoring Gruccio while advancing Avella to second. On the ensuing play, Avella scored on an error before senior Chris Drechsel (Cranford, NJ / Cranford) completed the scoring with a sacrifice fly, plating Lucas.

The Red Storm immediately answered with a pair of runs in the bottom of the first, cutting the Seahawk lead to 3-2.

St. John's took their first lead of the game in the bottom of the third with two runs after loading the bases with no outs.

Leading off the top of the fourth, Drechsel immediately evened the game up with his second home run, a solo shot to deep left field. Junior Joe Conforti (Staten Island, NY / Farrell) then laced a one-out double to right center before sophomore Brian Martutartus (Carlsad, CA / La Costa Canyon) followed with a RBI-triple to deep right center. Gruccio extended the lead out to 6-4 with a bunt single back to the pitcher, scoring Martutartus.

From that point on it would be all St. John's as the Red Storm scored 14 unanswered runs over the next five frames while jumping out to an insurmountable 18-6 lead. The Green tacked on three runs in the top of the ninth, accounting for the final 18-9 tally.

Gruccio extended his career-best hitting streak to eight games while going 2-4 and is hitting .489 (23-47) on the year. Avella, Boyd, sophomore Matt Logan (Wall, NJ / Wall) and Lucas each also notched a pair of hits for Wagner.

Freshman RHP Ryan Van Spronsen (Brantford, Ontartio / Assumption College) gave up two runs over 1.1 innings and is now 1-1 on the year. Nick Cenatiempto evened his record at 2-2, striking out six over 4.1 innings for St. John's.

Wagner is at Quinnipiac on Thursday, April 9 at 3:00 pm.