Ball State University
10-9
Dayton
6-10-1
Cardinals Rout Dayton 11-6
March 16, 2019 | Baseball
Cardinals bang out 17 hits for 10th win of the season
Messina, now batting .310 this year with a team-high 12 XBH, fell a homer short of the cycle with his literally hot bat. Ricotta and William Baker also had three hits and Ricotta scored a team-high three runs.
The score was 2-2 in the 4th inning when Ball State's bats broke the game open. An RBI groundout by Simpson gave BSU the lead and Noah Navarro smacked an RBI double to make it 4-2. Ricotta's 2-run shot in the 5th made it 6-2 and then Simpson delivered a 3-run shot to right center to give the Cardinals a commanding lead.Â
RELATED: Ball State Piles It On In Win Over Dayton (Daily News)
A Messina RBI triple made it 10-2 before Dayton's Jay Curtis hit a grand slam to make the score a little closer than the game appeared. Dayton continued to battle but Ricotta singled and scored on a wild pitch to provide the final 11-6 margin.
The 3-run homer was Simpson's second of the week, and the centerfielder is now batting exactly .300 on the season.
On the mound, Ball State built its lead behind a strong outing from John Baker. The righty struck out five over 5.0 innings and Lukas Jaksich struck out six more in 2.2 innings of relief. Two-way player Andre Orselli got the last four outs of the game on the mound and also had a hit and two walks on offense. An emerging player on offense, Orselli is 4-for-9 with two walks and three RBIs in addition to his relief pitching duties.Â
Ball State (10-9) will finish its series with Dayton Sunday afternoon. BSU has home games in the coming week Tuesday against Purdue and Wednesday against Fort Wayne.
Team Stats
Pitching:
W: Baker, John (1-1)
L: ERNST (0-4)
Batting:
2B: BRICKMAN 1
HR: PURSINGER 1 ; CURTIS 1
RBI: BRICKMAN 1 ; PURSINGER 1 ; CURTIS 4
Base Running:
RUNS: GARRITY 1 ; BRICKMAN 1 ; PURSINGER 2 ; YAMADA 1 ; CURTIS 1
CS: BLACKWELL 1
HBP: GARRITY 1
Batting:
2B: Navarro, Noah 1 ; Messina, Ross 1 ; Powell, Noah 1
3B: Messina, Ross 1
HR: Simpson, Aaron 1 ; Ricotta, John 1
RBI: Simpson, Aaron 4 ; Navarro, Noah 1 ; Messina, Ross 1 ; Ricotta, John 2 ; Baker, William 2
Base Running:
RUNS: Simpson, Aaron 1 ; Conant, Justin 1 ; Orselli, Andre 1 ; Ricotta, John 3 ; Murphy, Mack 1 ; Sebby, Chase 1 ; Powell, Noah 2 ; Baker, William 1
SB: Murphy, Mack 1
HBP: Ricotta, John 1
PO: Navarro, Noah 1
