Baseball
Baseball Edges Northeastern For 16th Win In Last 19 Games
April 28, 2004
KINGSTON, R.I. - Junior Mike Rainville (Pawtucket, R.I./Bishop Hendricken) singled with two outs in the sixth to drive in the winning run in the University of Rhode Island baseball team a 4-3 win over Northeastern on Wednesday at Bill Beck Field.
The Rams entered the sixth trailing 3-2, but took advantage of two errors by Northeastern to tie the game and then took the lead on Rainville's single.
Rainville went 2-for- 4 with two RBIs and a run scored and Sullivan went 2-for-4. Senior Keith Ross (West Bridgewater, Mass.) earned the win, pitching 2/3 of inning. Junior Mick Lefort (Lincoln, R.I.) pitched a scoreless ninth to earn his sixth save of the season, tying the school's single-season mark.
Lefort did walk did walk Brad Czarnowski with two outs in the ninth and Czarnowski stole second to put the tying run in scoring position. But Lefort got Arman Sidhu to hit a soft liner to right fielder Matt Sullivan (Nashua, N.H.) to end the game.
The Rams have now won 16 of their last 19 games to improve to 23-15-1, just four wins shy of the school record. They lead the Atlantic 10 with a 13-2 conference mark.
Northeastern (16-15) scored an unearned run in the first inning, but Rhody took the lead in the bottom of the second when senior Dan Batz (Mohnton, Pa.) led off with a single and Sullivan followed with a bunt single, and Northeastern throwing error allowed Batz to move to third. Sullivan stole second and Rainville singled to score Batz to tie the game. With two outs, freshman Ryan Cunningham (Centerville, Va.) singled to right to tie the game.
Northeastern, who defeated the Rams 3-2 earlier this season, regained the lead in sixth, stringing together three consecutive singles to tie the game and then scored the go-ahead run on a balk.
The Rams came right back in the bottom of the sixth to take the lead for good. Freshman Dave Savard (Nashua, N.H.) drew a lead off walk and sophomore Wayne Russo (Warwick, R.I.) reached on an error on his sac bunt attempt. Freshman Scott Brown (Portland, Maine) then hit a sacrifice fly to right field that was dropped for the second error of the inning, tying the game.
With two outs, Rainville came through with his game-winning hit, and the Rhody pitchers Matt Preston (Dover, N.H.), Tom Venedam (Suffern, N.Y.) and Lefort held the one-run lead for the last three innings.
The Rams return to action Thursday at Quinnipiac at 3:30 p.m. and host Massachusetts for a three-game series beginning Saturday at noon.
