Series Thread: FIU vs FAU - Apr 28th - 30th, 2017
What: FIU (26-17, 10-8 C-USA) at Florida Atlantic (26-13-1, 12-6 C-USA)
When: Fri, Apr 28th at 6:30 PM
Sat, Apr 29th at 4:00 PM
Sun, Apr 30th at 12:00 PM
Where: FAU Baseball Stadium
Stream: CUSA.tv *FEE
Stats: Here
Series:
The Owls own a 58-48 advantage against the Panthers.
Projected Starting Pitchers
Fri: FIU - RHP Nick MacDonald (6-1, 3.23)
FAU - RHP Alex House (5-2, 4.65)
Sat: FIU - FIU RHP Tyler Myrick (4-2, 4.15)
FAU - RHP Mark Nowatnick (5-0, 1.40)
Sun: FIU - LHP Alex Demchak (3-0, 4.05)
FAU - TBA
Game Notes
Owls
Florida Atlantic avenged a prior 7-5 loss to FGCU with a mammoth offensive performance on Tuesday night, winning 13-1 to even the two game season series.
Esteban Puerta had a grand slam and 5 RBI on the evening and is currently tied with David Miranda for a team best 39 RBI on the year.
Though the Owls lost their first series of the season at UTSA over the weekend, they are still just a game behind first place Southern Miss in a three-way tie with Old Dominion and Charlotte.
Junior RHP Mark Nowatnick made his first start of the season a great one, as the first of four pitchers in a combined Sunday shutout of UTSA. Pitching into the sixth inning he allowed just four hits and two walks while notching his fifth win.
With Tuesday's win over the Eagles, the Owls' bullpen now has half (13) of the team’s 26 wins. Collectively, they are 5-1 in C-USA play with an ERA of 2.35.
The starting rotation will change again this weekend, with Nowatnick moving to Saturday for Jake Miednik and Sunday's starter to be announced.
Panthers
FIU faced Miami twice in mid week action dropping the first contest 7-8 at home before taking the second 5-4 at Mark Light. JC Escarra singled in the winning run in the top of the ninth to give the Panthers a 3-1 finish against UM for the 2017 regular season.
The Panthers won their fourth C-USA series in five weeks by taking two-of-three over Marshall in Beckley and have now won 9 of their last 11 games.
Junior OF Jack Schaaf had multiple hits in each game at Marshall, finishing the series 7-for-14 (.500) with a double, a triple, two runs scored and four RBI.
Panther ace Nick MacDonald is eighth in C-USA in ERA and among a four-way tie for first in wins, one ahead of FAU's House and Nowatnick.
FIU is second nationally in HBP with 76, and remarkably, have four individuals among the top 10 in C-USA.
#OWLS WIN! #FAU takes G1 vs FIU 4-3 on walk-off wild pitch! WP Peden. SP House 7.2IP, 3H, 3R, 2K. Abraham 3-4 RBI. G2 Sat 4pm #GoOwls!👌 pic.twitter.com/k7IWro1KvL
— FAU Owl's Nest (@TheOwlsNest_ITB) April 29, 2017
Florida Atlantic (27-13-1, 13-6 C-USA) wins a well fought 4-3 series opener over the Panthers, who led 3-2 after four innings of play.
Kevin Abraham’s two-out single in the second scored the Owls’ first run, and Stephen Kerr’s sacrifice fly in the third made it a 2-1 game at that point before FIU answered to take the lead.
Alex House held the visitors to just three three runs off three hits in 7.2 frames to set up another strong showing from Owls' pen members Weston Clemente and Drew Peden who combined to strike out three of the six batters faced.
The Owls tied the contest just after the stretch when David Miranda sent his team leading ninth home run over the right field wall.
After being hit-by-pitch, Miranda then scored the game winning RBI in the bottom of the ninth in walk-off fashion courtesy of a trio of wild pitches from FIU (26-18, 10-9 C-USA).
"I’m happy for the guys, they played really well, this is our first bottom-of-the-ninth-win all year; I’m glad it came out our way", said Head Coach John McCormack.
Fresh off the first win in their last at-bat this season, FAU will look to clinch the series tomorrow at 4:00 PM.
#OWLS WIN! #FAU takes G2 9-8 in 10! GW RBI Shouppe, Labsan 2RBI HR, Langham 3RBI 2B, Frank 4-4. WP Ragsdale. G3 Sun for SWEEP 12p #GoOwls! 👌 pic.twitter.com/d4kL0w4d3O
— FAU Owl's Nest (@TheOwlsNest_ITB) April 29, 2017
Florida Atlantic saw thier third extra inning affair of the season on Saturday, coming out on top for the second time in a 9-8 defeat of Florida International.
Scoring three runs early, FIU (26-19, 10-10 C-USA) led 4-1 in the top of the fifth until the Owls began their comeback effort.
Trailing by a run, Austin Langham looked to have the Owls on tap for the win with a three RBI double in the 7th that put them up 6-4.
However, the normally reliable FAU bullpen ran into trouble thereafter with the Panthers posting back-to-back homers off of Nick Swan in the top of the 8th to pull even.
From there they loaded the bases in the ninth with no outs as Kyle Marman struggled for control.
Drew Peden struck out two FIU batters to set up lefty Weston Clemente in a repeat battle with JC Escarra but his bloop single to right center scored two runs and a 8-6 advantage.
Sean Labsan would answer for the Owls again by blasting a game tying two RBI homer in the ninth inning to knot it up again and force extras.
Turning the tide for the pen, Cameron Ragsdale put down the Panthers in 1-2-3 fashion in the 10th, and with two on for the Owls in their turn Jared Shouppe doubled down the right field line to score Stephen Kerr for the winning run.
The Owls outhit their nemesis 18-11 for the contest, while committing no errors.
Starter Mark Nowatnick threw 4.1 innings surrendering four runs off of seven hits with no strikeouts for the Owls (28-13-1, 14-6 C-USA) who will go for the sweep on Sunday.
UPDATED SCHEDULE: 2017 FAU Baseball Schedule - FAU Owl's Nest
This team beat Miami THREE times this season.
Not an easy feat to do, despite them being down a bit.
Now, if we take the series from USM, and ODU we better get some Top 25 consideration.
Go Owls!
MLBBoca said
Responding to something else, in a 9-8 game, 2 BB, one of resulted in the tying run, the other of which was fought back from an 0-2 count and moved a runner into scoring position to score the walkoff. You know what, I'll take that kind of "Sliding Backward" every day.Posted On: Apr 30th 2017, 12:18 AM #368579
Exactly and great posts you two! Kinda like Swanson with the Braves right now, an awful .150 average but also zero luck, hitting the ball hard most of the time (does strike out too much still) but right at people. You keep making good contact the ball will start dropping in! A case for both the player and manager needing credit for patience!
Jake Miednik gets the call on the bump and is off to his best start in the last three attempts while holding the Panthers to just a hit
Unfortunately, the Owls have just as hit as well.
They will try and change that in their third at bat.
Bot 3rd
FIU 0 FAU 0
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