TicketsBearcats Better Xavier, 10-5
UC wins third straight
Contact: Shawn Sell
4/13/2005
David Theobald earned his first career win vs. Xavier. |
CINCINNATI, Ohio---Cincinnati jumped to a 6-0 lead and never looked back as the Bearcats picked up their third straight win, a 10-5 decision over Xavier on Wednesday afternoon at Hayden Field. The victory, UC?s third in a row vs. the Musketeers, improves the squad?s record to 13-16 on the year.
David Theobald (1-1) gave the Bearcats five solid innings of work to earn the first win of his career. The UC offense pounded out 12 hits, including four by Mark Muscenti. Neall French and Brian Szarmach added home runs in the victory for the Bearcats.
Xavier (13-21) recorded 13 hits on the day, including three each by Jay Johnson and Dan Hayden. One of Johnson?s three knocks was his fifth home run of the season.
?Our rivalry with Xavier is an important one,? said Bearcat head coach Brian Cleary. ?With the close location, there is a lot of interest in the Cincinnati baseball location. I am hopefully that with our new facility, this will become a marquee match-up every spring. I think it?s important for us to win our rivalry games.?
The Bearcats wasted little time jumping on Xavier starting pitcher Steve Sakosits, tailoring a three-run second inning that spelled the end of the day for the Musketeer junior. With one out, Szarmach singled and moved to third on a Muscenti double. Kevin Schrader, making his first start in right field, followed with an RBI groundout to plate Szarmach. French then lifted his first career homer to right center to stake the visitors to a 3-0 lead.
UC put two more on the board in the third with a two-run single by Muscenti, scoring Mark Haske and Jon DeLuca. The Bearcats added run number six in the fifth when Jack Nelson raced home on a Xavier error.
Xavier finally scratched the scoreboard in the fifth when Johnson went deep against Theobald. The Musketeers moved to within 6-3 in the seventh as a Collin Salzenstein single and a Sean Brewer sacrifice fly plated two runs.
In the top of the eighth, the Bearcats pulled ahead by a 10-3 count with four insurance runs. With two outs, Logan Parker singled to left field scoring LaFringe Hayes. The next hitter, Szarmach then smoked a three-run homer to left off of Bill Konecny to put UC in control.
Xavier got to UC reliever Justin Minges in the eighth for the final two runs of the afternoon. Matt Waskerwitz scored Adam Lipski with an RBI single with the former coming around on Hayden?s RBI double. With just one out, UC freshman Sean Munninghoff replaced Minges and retired five of the last six hitters of the day to wrap up the Bearcat win.
UC will be out to stay in the race for a Conference USA tournament berth when it returns home this weekend to host Charlotte. The series from the UC Baseball Stadium gets underway on Friday at 6:30 p.m.