ADRIAN, Mich. – On a day when the weather was lousy, the Adrian College baseball team was far from it in a pair of wins against Alma College on Saturday. The Bulldogs scored a season-high 17 runs in game one for a 17-1 win and followed that with an 8-0 win in the nightcap.
11 different players had a hit in game one as the Bulldogs racked up 20 hits. The team had seven doubles, three triples and a home run among those 20 knocks. Junior Jason Fryman got the ball and went six innings allowing five hits and one earned run to improve to 4-0 this season. He walked a pair and struck out four in a 96-pitch effort. Sophomore Josh Burd pitched the seventh inning and allowed a hit with two strikeouts.
Adrian's big inning early was a six-run second and later they put together a five-run fifth inning. In the second inning, senior Nate Clark led off with his first triple of the season and scored on a Joe Dubina double to make it 2-0. Junior Michael Herzog followed with a double on an 0-2 pitch to score Dubina for a 3-0 lead. After two outs, sophomore Cody Meyer walked and senior Brian Bilius singled to left which scored Herzog with the fourth run. Senior Nate Sarkissian then tripled to right center as Meyer and Bilius both scored. Senior Jake Cappelletty had a single through the left side scoring Sarkissian to make it 7-0. AC had six runs on six hits in the second.
Adrian made it 10-0 in the fourth inning with three runs. Meyer led off with his first career home run, a shot to straight away center, on a 2-0 pitch to give Adrian an 8-0 lead. After a pair of outs, Adrian added two more runs. Cappelletty doubled to right center and then Clark singled up the middle to score Cappelletty with the ninth run. After a Dubina single, Herzog drove home Clark with a single up the middle.
Brandon Hentkowski began the fifth inning on the mound for Alma and the Bulldogs greeted him with five more runs to lead 15-0. Adrian had three straight hits to start the inning with Bilius hitting a double to left center to score senior Chris Kerekes who singled earlier in the inning. Mitch Stefanski drew a bases-loaded walk for an RBI and Dubina had a sacrifice fly to make it 13-0. Herzog then had a two-out double scoring Stefanski and Sarkissian.
Meyer reached base four times and scored a career-high four runs. He was 3-for-3 with a walk and his ninth stolen base of the season. Bilius went 2-for-4 with two runs and two RBI's and hit his ninth double of the year. Sarkissian was 2-for-3 with two runs and three RBI's. He also had his first two-triple game of his career which were his first two triples of the campaign. Herzog went 3-for-4 setting career-highs for hits (3), doubles (2) and RBI's (4) in a game.
In game two, Adrian scored three times in the second and later added four big runs in the fifth to put the game away. Sophomores Zach Robbins and Lucas Willitzer combined to hold the Scots scoreless and gave up just four hits. Robbins got the start and gave up the four hits with a walk and three strikeouts. He has thrown 17 innings this season without an earned run and improved to 3-0. Willitzer walked one and struck out one in his two innings of work.
Adrian had 12 hits off Sam Shipman (11) and Donny Lee (1) in the nightcap. Sarkissian went 2-for-4 with two runs and an RBI. Cappelletty was 3-for-3 with two runs and an RBI. Clark finished a strong day with two hits in three at-bats. He scored twice and drove in a pair of runs. Dubina also had two RBI's and his sixth double of the season. Bilius and Herzog each had a double in game two for the Bulldogs.
Notes: Adrian scored in double digits for the fifth time this season in game one…Bilius reached a milestone with his 500th at-bat and sits at 99 career RBI's…Cappelletty's five hits today now gives him 157 in his career…Clark had four hits today and four hits in 23 career at-bats coming into today in his career…Fryman may just be the most improved player on the team as evidenced by his current 4-0 record and 2.27 ERA after a 0-2 record and 9.37 ERA in 2010…Meyer's first career home run in game one came in his 197th career at-bat…Sarkissian's two triples in game one give him six in his career, but it was his first triple since the 2009 season…The Adrian starting pitchers this season have a record of 17-2 with a 2.28 ERA and 133 strikeouts in 150 innings…Bilius leads the team with 13 multi-hit games this season…Dubina leads the team with seven multi-RBI games this season…Meyer and Bilius both have six-game hitting streaks.
