Baseball Takes Two From Saint Joseph’s

Bronx, N.Y. – (April 6, 2019) – On a picture perfect day in the Bronx, the Fordham baseball team made it a special one, sweeping an Atlantic 10 doubleheader from the Saint Joseph's Hawks scores of 2-0 and 4-3 at Houlihan Park on Saturday afternoon.
 
The two wins were win #199 and #200 for Fordham head coach Kevin Leighton at Rose Hill becoming the fifth Fordham baseball coach to reach that plateau, joining Jack Lynch, Fred Smith, Jack Coffey, and Dan Gallagher.  Overall, Leighton also reached 400 career coaching wins with 200 at Manhattan College and 200 at Fordham University.
 
For the team, Fordham improved to 19-12 overall, 5-3 in the Atlantic 10, while Saint Joseph's fell to 12-16 on the year, 5-3 in the league.
 
In game one, Fordham netted the only two runs of the game in the third and fourth inning.  In the third inning, Billy Godrick singled with one out and was sacrificed to second.  Jake MacKenzie then plated Godrick with a double to right center for a 1-0 lead.

 
The fourth inning was Matt Tarabek rip an RBI-single through the right side, scoring Justin Bardwell.  Bardwell reached base on a single, was sacrificed to second, and moved to third on a balk.

 

From there, it was all Matt Mikulski and Kyle Martin for the Rams, as they combined for a six-hit shutout.  Mikulski (4-3) pitched a career-best eight innings in the win, allowing four hits and four walks with seven strikeouts, while Martin recorded his fifth save, recording two strikeouts in one inning of work.
 
In game two, the Hawks got out to a 2-0 lead in the top of the second on RBI-singles by Matt Cuppari and Brendan Hueth.
 
The Rams cut the lead to 2-1 in the fifth on an RBI-single by Nick Labella, and then grabbed a 4-2 lead with a three-run sixth inning, taking advantage of two Saint Joseph's errors.
 
The Hawks would get within one in the seventh at 4-3, but the Rams would lock down the win with another save by Martin in the ninth inning, his sixth of the season.  John Stankiewicz (5-1) recorded his team-leading fifth win of the season, allowing one earned run over six innings with seven strikeouts.  At the plate, Labella was 3-for-4 with a double and an RBI, while Jason Coules was 2-for-2 with a run scored.
 
The two teams will wrap up the three-game series on Sunday at noon.