April 3, 2005

Box Score

DAYTON, Ohio - Senior Dan Frederick (Dracut, Mass.) pitched 6 2/3 innings, allowing one run against a potent Dayton line-up, while junior Daryl Holcomb (Wilmington, Del.) drove in three runs in the Rams' 4-1 win in the first game of Saturday's doubleheader.

Rhode Island (7-11, 3-1 Atlantic 10) can take its ninth-straight Atlantic 10 series, dating back to last season, with a win in the second game of Saturday's doubleheader.

"We had good pitching and we had some timely hitting today," Rhode Island head coach Frank Leoni said. "Their pitchers were hot, but our hitters did a nice job staying on them all game."

All nine Rhode Island batters collected a hit in the series opener, including senior Matt Sullivan (Nashua, N.H.), who hit a bloop infield single in the fifth inning to extend his school-record hitting streak to 16 games. Sullivan went 1-for-4 on the game, but picked up the single in his third at-bat. He is hitting .319 on the season, which is second on the team behind Holcomb. Sullivan started the year going 0-for-6 over the first two games, but is hitting .349 (22-for-63) since.

Dayton entered the game with a 16-7 record and perfect 3-0 mark in Atlantic 10 play, having swept three games from defending Atlantic 10 champion St. Bonaventure last weekend. The Flyers were averaging 7.3 runs per game heading into to Saturday, but Frederick held them to just one run and six hits through 6 2/3 innings. He struck out five, walked two and came one out shy of a complete-game.

"We've been waiting for Frederick to throw the ball like that," Rhode Island head coach Frank Leoni said. "He had command of all of his pitches with great control. That's what we need from him."

Frederick (1-3) retired the first two batters he faced in the bottom of the seventh, but a throwing error let the next hitter reach and prolong the game. Frederick then gave up a single and walked the next batter to load the bases and head coach Frank Leoni gave the ball to senior closer Mick Lefort (Lincoln, R.I.).

Lefort came on with the bases loaded and two outs and struck out the only batter he faced for his fifth save of the season. Lefort now has eight strikeouts in 7 2/3 innings pitched this spring.

Holcomb drove in three runs, including a solo home run to lead off the game. He went 1-for-1 with two sac flies, raising his team-leading batting average to .417. Holcomb started the game with a lead-off homer, his first round-tripper of the season and third of his two-year career in a URI uniform.

The score remained 1-0 until the fifth inning, when the Rams pushed across two more runs and Sullivan hit his infield single to keep the school-record hitting streak alive.

Junior Josh Nestor (Nashua, N.H.) and senior Joe Viscuso (Farmingdale, N.Y.) hit back-to-back singles with one out to give the Rams runners on first and third. Holcomb hit a sacrifice fly to center to give Rhody a 2-0 lead and Sullivan followed with his bloop single to put runners on first and second. Sophomore Scott Brown (Portland, Maine) singled through the right side to score Viscuso, giving Brown his team-leading 16th RBI of the season and the Rams a 3-0 advantage.

Frederick would throw five shutout innings against the high-powered Dayton line-up, but the Flyers finally got on the scoreboard in the bottom of the sixth. Brandon Godzik doubled to left center and then scored on a RBI-single by Joe McSoley.

Rhode Island got that run back in the top of the seventh, when Viscuso reached on an error by the right fielder, advanced to third on another error, and scored on Holcomb's second sac fly of the game.