Men's Baseball: Explorers shut out Dayton

By Ben Rosehart
Senior Staff Writer
March 29, 2006

With the bases loaded and one out in the fourth inning of Sunday’s scoreless rubber match with Dayton, junior pitcher Dan Waters peered across home plate, trying to get out of a jam with the Flyers’ Joe McSoley up at bat.

Junior Billy Kern went two for 10 with a walk and a run scored in this weekend’s
series against Dayton. Photo taken by Lou Pereseghin.

As he has been able to do with relative ease in March, Waters calmly coaxed McSoley to bounce a grounder back to the mound, starting a 1-2-3 double play to get out of the inning.

“The key was getting out of jams, and we turned five, six double plays at the right times [in the series],” senior infielder Mike Essery said.

The very next inning, in the top of the fifth, senior George Hudock smashed a two-run homer after sophomore Dennis Burge had walked. Burge scored again in the ninth, after he doubled and scored on Hudock’s sacrifice fly.

Waters (2-2) scattered six hits over six innings and struck out five to earn the victory. La Salle has now won in each of Waters’ last three starts, in which he has lowered his ERA to 3.67 and has struck out 26 batters in 17.1 innings.

“He’s one of the top pitchers in the A-10,” head coach Lee Saverio said. “We know what our rotation is now, along with [Gerard] Breslin as one of the top 30 closers in the country. What we preach is strong pitching and solid defense, and if we do both we’ll be in every game.”

The Explorers weren’t just competitive in all three games against Atlantic-10 rival Dayton this past weekend. La Salle (7-14 overall, 2-1 in the A-10) won its first-ever series against the Flyers (9-11 overall, 1-2 in the A-10) and, at one point, held them to just one run over 26 innings.

Two wins were sandwiched around a 1-0 loss on Saturday, with Sunday’s final score resembling the same result of Friday’s game, 3-0 in favor of the Explorers.

La Salle had never shut out an opponent twice in an A-10 series, and the best three-game performance prior to this past weekend was back in 1997 when the Explorers only allowed six runs over a three game set against Saint Joseph’s.

“People seem to be counting us out, and we kind of took it to heart and wanted to do all that we could to win the series in Dayton,” said freshman Ken Elkind, who notched his first career victory in Friday’s game. “As the season goes on, this team will get better and better, and some teams are going to sleep on us.”

Making only his second collegiate start, Elkind gave up just two hits in six innings and whiffed six batters. For his effort, he was named the Atlantic 10 Rookie of the Week. After Elkin left the game, John Reifsnyder pitched the seventh, and Breslin took over from there, earning his first save of the season.

A two-run homer by junior co-captain Rich Prall after a single by junior Billy Kern gave Elkind all the cushion he would need, and John Rickards added an insurance run on a shot to right field in the ninth.

“Everyone really has done a part,” Elkind said. “All of the captains have shown confidence in me as a freshman, which makes me feel better. If they didn’t have confidence in me, I would be a lot less comfortable and press. They always keep me up when things aren’t going my way on the mound or if I’m struggling up at the plate, so everyone has really welcomed us freshmen as a whole.”

Mike Essery also mentioned the impact the younger players have already had on this year’s team.

“Our freshmen really stepped up [this past weekend],” Essery said, “and our offense struggled, but we got some key, timely hits with two of our captains stepping up.”

After a date at Delaware State today at 2:30 p.m., the men will see what they can cook up against St. Joe’s when the Hawks fly in for a three-game series beginning this Friday afternoon at 3 p.m.

osehartb1@lasalle.edu