St. Louis, Mo. – Following a flight cancelation, which forced unique travel plans upon the Fordham baseball team, the Rams managed to split their doubleheader at Saint Louis on Sunday at the Billiken Sports Center. The Rams dropped game one by a 10-0 score, while rebounding with a 7-1 win in game two.
With the split, Fordham is 14-13 on the year, 4-4 in the Atlantic 10, while Saint Louis is now 19-9 overall, 3-4 in the league. The win in game two snapped a six-game losing streak for the Rams in games played at Saint Louis.
In game one, the game was scoreless through three before the Billikens got on the board with two runs in the fourth. With runners at first and second, Devin Mahoney put down a sacrifice bunt, but an errant throw to first allowed Mahoney to reach first and allow a run to score. Trent Leimkuehler then singled to left to plate a second run.
Saint Louis made it 3-0 in the sixth inning, when James Morisano connected on a solo home run to left, his sixth of the season.
The Billikens then blew the game open with a seven-run eighth inning to secure a 10-0 win.
For Fordham, Reiss Knehr (2-3) took the loss, allowing two earned runs on seven hits in six innings of work. At the plate, Mark Donadio was 2-for-4 with a double, while four other Rams had one hit each.
Justin Bardwell
Game two saw Fordham jump out to the initial lead in the top of the third inning. Ryan Mahoney drew a walk to start the frame and was sacrificed to second by Jason Lundy. After a walk and a wild pitch put runners at second and third with two outs, Justin Bardwell delivered a two-run double to left center, scoring Mahoney and Matthew Kozuch.
After Saint Louis cut the Fordham lead to 2-1 in the fifth, the Rams took advantage of three Billiken errors to score four runs in the sixth and take a 6-1 lead. Jake Baker reached on an error to lead off the inning and stole second. After a walk to Bardwell, Donadio laid down a sacrifice bunt, but the first baseman throw went wide, loading the bases with no outs. Brian Goulard then hit a ball to short, which also wasn't fielded cleanly, allowing Baker to score. Matt Tarabek was then hit by a pitch to force in Bardwell. The scoring then ended with back-to-back RBI-singles by Knehr and Mahoney for a four-run edge.
Fordham added one more tally in the top of the eighth inning, scoring a run on a double play ball for the 7-1 final.
For Fordham, Jimmy Murphy improved to 3-4 on the season, as he continued his stellar season. He allowed one run on eight hits over seven innings of work with five strikeouts. Alvin Melendez closed out the game with two scoreless innings of relief. At the plate, Bardwell was 2-for-3 with two doubles and two RBI, while Mahoney was 1-for-3 with a run scored and an RBI.
The Fordham baseball team will next be in action on Tuesday, April 11th, when the Rams travel to Siena for a 4:00 PM game.
