URI sweeps La Salle to reach .500 in A-10
ccotter@ricentral.com
KINGSTON – What a difference a month makes. At the start of April, the URI baseball team was sitting at 0-6 in Atlantic 10 play. Since then, all they’ve done is rattle off the longest active win streak in the country – an 11-game stretch that has put them back to .500 in conference and in play for the postseason tournament.
“I’m not surprised,” URI coach Raphael Cerrato said. “I thought we would have more wins earlier in the year. We’ve played a tough schedule. We’ve started to get a little more confidence and we’re getting big hits. We have the pitching. I knew if we can just be decent offensively, we can go on a run like this.”
The latest win came on Sunday afternoon, a 7-1 drubbing of lowly La Salle (4-14 A-10). Taso Stathopoulos pitched six shutout innings to earn his fourth victory of the season, striking out five and allowing one hit.
Tyler Wilson was just as dominant in his start on Saturday, tying his season-high mark of 10 strikeouts. Matt Murphy wasn’t as sharp for Rhody in Friday’s 10-5 win, but he still picked up the win thanks to a six-inning, four-run performance.
“They scored a couple off Murph in the first inning on Friday,” Cerrato said. “They really ambushed some fastballs on him. From that point on, he settled down. Pitching was good, relief was good. Taso was really good. I don’t think he was even at his best, but he pitched well enough. Wilson was really good yesterday. Murph was good Friday, gave us a chance to win.
“To me, they’re all number ones right now. That’s not a cut on Murphy, the Friday guy. They’ve all been very good. I think it’s our advantage – we have basically a number one guy going every day of the week.”
URI has run out a lineup dotted with freshmen and inexperienced collegiate ballplayers, but it appears they have turned a corner as of late. They put up 10 runs in Friday’s win, and had five extra-base hits in the series finale.
Redshirt freshman Max Mircovich hadn’t logged a single at-bat since April 1 against Davidson, but stepped in to deliver the first run of the day on Sunday. Filling in for the injured Greg Cavaliere, the righthander from Dana Point, Calif. drove in a run with a triple in the second inning.
“He’s got talent, super-talented kid,” Cerrato said. “He’s been working so hard in his pre-game [batting practice] when he wasn’t playing. His BP has been great. Everything has been outstanding. Cavaliere hurt his ankle yesterday, so with a lefty [pitching], Mircovich was ready to play. Had a huge knock there in the second inning.
“Probably hasn’t played in a month. His practice has allowed him to be ready.”
The Rams scored four times in the fourth inning. The other three RBIs came on a Laurence Hill double, a Jordan Powell triple and a Kevin Heiss single.
The offense was quieted following that crooked frame. La Salle starter Colin Scanlon – who tilts his head so hard toward first base that his cap falls off with every single pitch – worked three consecutive 1-2-3 innings after spotting Rhody four runs.
Sophomore catcher Sonny Ulliana put an end to Scanlon’s efficient run, blasting a two-run home run over the left field fence. Mike Foley added another insurance run in the eighth, poking a groundball through the infield for an RBI single.
For teams in URI’s position – 9-9 in the A-10, on the bubble for the A-10 tournament – scoreboard watching becomes a nervous habit this time of year. Not so for Cerrato. After the 0-6 start, Cerrato couldn’t bear to look at the standings, knowing exactly where his team was situated.
“I don’t want to [look] at this point, as a jinx,” he said. “I’ll probably check it out at some point. I read something – an article about Jackson Coutts in the Bangor newspaper – about how we were a game-and-a-half behind Richmond to start the weekend.”
Only the top seven teams in the standings qualify for the conference tournament. Currently in eighth place, URI will need to take advantage of their last two weekend series, against Dayton (6-11) and St. Bonaventure (5-11).
“We have an opportunity in the last two weekends to hopefully continue to play well and get into the [A-10] tournament,” Cerrato said. “If we can get to 13 wins, we have a shot. We get to 14, we should be in. 12 is really questionable. That’s my thought process. Get to 13 and we have a chance.”
The series against Dayton is this weekend, on the road. URI does not play any non-conference games this week, but will return to Bill Beck Field for a game against UConn, on Tuesday, May 15.