April 1, 2007

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PHILADELPHIA - For the fifth straight game, a La Salle University Baseball game was decided in the winning team's final at-bat. In this one - the Explorers third extra inning game this week - La Salle plated the winning run thanks to Billy Kern, who singled home Matt Burns in the bottom of the 11th inning to lift the Explorers to an 8-7 victory over the Temple Owls in the final game of the three-game Atlantic 10 series at Hank DeVincent Field, Sunday.

Tied at 1-1 through five innings, Temple jumped out to a five-run lead at 7-2 after scoring two runs in the sixth on a Sean Barksdale's two-run home run, and four more in the seventh, the key hit a three-RBI double by Mike Kelch.

However, the Explorers fought back, getting one run of their own in the bottom of the sixth, an RBI from George Papuchis scoring John Rickards, and four more in the seventh, as Davis Hewett knocked in a pair with a single.

It was Papuchis again in the seventh with another RBI to cut the Owl lead to 7-6 - plating Hewett, and in the bottom of the ninth, Papuchis came through again with a hit-and-run single to right scoring Hewett, again, with the tying run.

In the 11th, Matt Burns reached first after being hit by a pitch and moved to second on TJ Chism's third sacrifice bunt of the day. Chism also had a sacrifice fly in the fourth, which scored Rickards to tie the game at 1-1.

One out later - a groundball by John Vincent which moved Burns to third - Kern hit a hot shot down the third base line and scored the game-winner and gave La Salle the series win over the Owls.

Temple (8-15, 2-4 A-10) plated the first run of the game with one out in the first. Jamie Abercrombie and Ryan Weber hit almost identical doubles down the left field line with Weber's scoring Abercrombie to give Temple the 1-0 lead.

Over the next four innings, La Salle starter Craig Muschko scattered just two hits, while striking out four but was pulled in the sixth three batters after Barksdale's home run.

Owl starter Matt Mongiardini went 6.1 innings allowing six runs on six hits before Temple went to its pen, and was still the pitcher of record before the Explorers tied the game in the ninth.

Jamie Cowan kept the Owls off the scoreboard for 3.1 innings, after taking over for Dan Waters in the seventh. He allowed just one hit and one walk while striking out three batters. Chism pitched a perfect 11th inning and picked up the win for La Salle and is now 2-3. Weber, in his first appearance as a pitcher this season, worked the final 2.1 innings for Temple and suffered the loss (0-1).

Four Explorers had two hits in the game, as Rickards, Hewett and Kern all went 2-for-4, while John Malloy was 2-for-5, extending his hitting streak to 22 straight games.

The 11-inning contest was the longest for the Explorers since battling the Owls for 12 innings in a 3-1 loss on May 11, 2005 at Temple. That contest ended when Owl Mike Weckerman hit a two-out two-run home run off La Salle's Jarred Ringer (PDF box score of that game).

The back-to-back extra inning games is La Salle's first in A-10 conference play and is the first since April 1998, when La Salle beat Villanova (4/13) and Lafayette (4/14) in back-to-back extra inning games.

La Salle (9-13, 2-4 A-10) is next in action at Delaware, Tuesday with a 3 PM start, a new game on the schedule.