TicketsBearcats Topple Xavier, 9-3
St. Jean earns second win of season
Contact: Shawn Sell
4/14/2004
Brian St. Jean earned his second win of the season in Wednesday's victory over Xavier. |
CINCINNATI, Ohio?The Cincinnati Bearcats scored a total of five runs in the last two innings and got an outstanding pitching performance from Brian St. Jean as UC topped Xavier 9-3 on Wednesday at Hayden Field. The win was the Bearcats? second in a row and fourth in the last seven games.
St. Jean worked into the seventh inning, leaving after 6.2 innings, allowing just two runs (one earned) on six hits, with two walks and four strikeouts. The junior improves to 2-4 on the year with the win.
Offensively, the Bearcats got big days from both Jon DeLuca and Steve Pickerell as Cincinnati had 12 hits on the day. DeLuca drove in three of UC?s nine runs, while Pickerell added his ninth home run of the year. UC improve to 7-25 on the year with the victory, while Xavier slips to 8-23.
?Its always nice to beat Xavier and this is a good win for us,? said Bearcat head coach Brian Cleary. ?St. Jean pitched really well for us and (Tony) Maynard was excellent out of the bullpen. They really kept us in the game until we could stretch the lead out. And of course, Pickerell came through with another clutch performance.?
The Bearcats didn?t waste any time getting on the scoreboard as DeLuca broke through for the first marker in the opening inning when he singled home Mark Muscenti who had led off the game with a double. DeLuca was at it again in the second as his two-run single plated both Muscenti and Brian Beltz. Jack Nelson started the scoring in the inning when he lined a single to leftfield to score Erik Eitel.
Cincinnati then rode the outstanding pitching of St. Jean as he cruised through the first six innings, allowing just three hits and retiring seven in a row at one point. The junior started to run into trouble in the seventh as both Steve Sakosits and Matt Waskertwitz came through with RBI singles that ultimately spelled the end of the day for St. Jean. With runners on the corner and two out, Tony Maynard was summoned from the bullpen and he promptly struck out Jason Morelli to end the threat.
The Bearcats broke the game open in the eighth and ninth innings, though, starting with Pickerell?s ninth long ball of the year in the eighth. Pickerell?s bomb was also the sixth of his two-year career at Hayden Field, among his 21 career homers.
In the ninth, UC put up three more with Brian Szarmach?s pinch-hit double starting the run. Muscenti then came through with a two-run single up the middle that brought home both Szarmach and Eitel.
After a seven-pitch eighth inning, Maynard yielded a lead off homer to Brett Smith in the ninth inning, but then settled down to retire the final three batters for his first career save. Xavier starter Dan Graham (2-7) was saddled with the loss after allowing four runs and six hits with five walks and five strikeouts in four innings of work.
The Bearcats will try to stretch their winning streak to a season-long three games when No. 14 East Carolina visits Midland Field this weekend. The series is set to get underway on Friday at 3 p.m.