Baseball Opens Series at Xavier with 5-3 Victory

Box Score

April 27, 2012

Final Stats

Cincinnati, Ohio - Behind another excellent pitching performance from Daniel Munday and Rich Anastasi, as well as a three-hit game from Ryan Maghini, the Fordham Rams opened a three-game series at Xavier with a 5-3 win over the Musketeers at Hayden Field in Cincinnati, Ohio.

With the win, Fordham improves to 19-26 on the season, 10-6 in the Atlantic 10, while Xavier drops to 20-24 overall, 6-7 in the league.

Fordham quickly jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the top of the first inning. Tim Swatek led off with a base hit off the glove of a Xavier player, and advanced to second as the ball got away. Swatek then moved to third on a passed ball and scored on an RBI-single by Matthew Cianci. A single by Ryan Maghini and a walk to Mike Mauri loaded the bases for Stephen McSherry, who lifted a sacrifice fly to right, scoring Cianci.

Xavier cut the lead in half in the bottom of the third to 2-1, as Mark Elwell was hit by a pitch with one out, stole second, and scored on a single by Patrick Paligraf.

Ryan Maghini had three htis on the day, including the go-ahead two-run single in the seventh.

The Musketeers then scored twice in the fifth to take a 3-2 edge. Daniel Rod doubled down the left field line on an extremely close fair-foul call, and moved to third on a bunt single by Brian Bruening. Rod then scored on a squeeze bunt by Elwell to tie the game with Bruening going to second. After another infield single, Selby Chidemo laid down the second successful squeeze bunt of the inning, scoring Bruening for the 3-2 edge.

Fordham regained the lead at 4-3 in the top of the seventh inning, taking advantage of a Xavier error. With two outs, Cianci reached second base on a throwing error, and slid over to third on a wild pitch. After Ryan Lee drew a walk and stole second, Maghini laced a two-run single to give the Rams the lead.

The Rams extended the lead to 5-3 in the top of the eighth, as Fordham loaded the bases and got an RBI-single to right by Lee, scoring Rob McCunney, who reached on a single.

Fordham starter Daniel Munday (4-3) was very strong over the first seven innings, picking up his career-high fourth win of the season. He gave up just three runs on five hits with three strikeouts, while Rich Anastasi closed out his fourth save of the season with two scoreless innings of relief, posting four strikeouts.

At the plate, Maghini was 3-for-5 with two RBI, while Cianci was 2-for-5 with two runs scored and an RBI.

Game two of this series is set for 1:00 PM on Saturday.