Have you ‘Herd’ about how poorly FIU is playing?

Louis Agudelo/ Staff Writer

The Panthers lost another series over the weekend. After losing three out of their last four games, dropping two out of the three games to Marshall University at home gave them their fourth series loss of the season and their second against a conference opponent.

The series began Thursday, March 24, night with the Panthers jumping ahead early, when with two outs, a double to the opposite field off of the bat of Zack Soria scored two runs. The Thundering Herd had their first run came across via a walk with the bases loaded, Andres Nuñez’s (2-1) third of the inning, but he’d eventually get out of the inning with the with lead for FIU still intact.

After leading off the bottom half of the second inning with a double, a couple of wild pitches advanced Eddie Silva from second to third and then third to home, to increase the lead to 3-1. After a scoreless third, an error by first baseman Nick Day scored the Marshall runner on third, but the one would be alone that inning.

An opposite field home run from Marshall’s 6-foot-7 first baseman Thomas Lane bounced off the net in left field and tied the game up in the top of the fifth inning and in the top of the sixth inning Marshall took the lead with an infield single and some help from FIU players out of position.

With a chance to redeem himself, Nick Day stepped into the batter’s box and in his words “come back and provide for my team”. He’d be intentionally walked, after a wild pitch would allow to runner standing on third base to score.

Another walk with the bases still loaded brought Austin Rodriguez across in the bottom of the 7th and tied the game back up at four and then an error at second base scored another and the Panthers took a 5-4 lead.

A couple more walks with the bases loaded boasted the lead to 7-4. Marshall’s Sam Finfer sent a rocket home run off the light post in right field in the top of the 8th, but two more would come across for FIU in the bottom of the 8th, and this game would belong to the Panthers with a 10-5 win.

Friday, March 25, night Marshall would be ready to get revenge on FIU, but they’d have to wait until the weather delay was over, with nearby storms threatening the game. The game would eventually start, at around 7:20 pm and the Thundering Herd jumped out to an early 2-0 lead of their own in the first inning.

A home run off the bat of Austin Rodriguez would bring FIU closer, but it would take waiting until the fourth inning to see the game tied back up at two with an RBI single by Eddie Silva. The Panthers took the lead just minutes later when a wild pitch allowed Silva to score from third.

With the game 3-2 in favor of the home team, it was Marshall’s turn to play their hand and they did by scoring two runs in the next inning with a couple of timely RBI-singles.

Chris Mourelle (3-2) had some of his best stuff Friday night, with 7 strikeouts, his highest total this season, but after giving up four runs on 11 hits, he’d be allowed to come out for the 6th inning and even made it through the 6th without much else happening, he was pulled from the game.

FIU would tie the game back up on an interference mix-up by the Marshall third-baseman Aaron Bossi, but the Herd would get the last laugh Friday night after scoring the go-ahead run in the top of the 8th and going on to win the game 5-4 and even the series up at 1-1.

On Saturday, March 26, with a chance to win the series, and bring their record against Conference USA competition to .500, FIU went to work. Garrett Cave(1-2) had a relatively successful first inning pitching for the Panthers, with two strikeouts, a hit, a walk, but no runs scored.

To start the scoring in Saturday’s game, Zach Files brought across Eddie Silva in the first inning with an RBI-Double to center.

With Files standing on second base, Soria, crushed a homerun to left-center field and made FIU’s lead 3-0. Marshall would have an answer quickly for at least one of those three runs, in the top of the next inning, when their shortstop Leo Valenti hit an RBI-single between Austin Rodriguez and Irving Lopez to get things started for his team.

Jack Schaaf hit a sacrifice fly to center field to score fellow outfielder Kolby Folis. Schaaf has the lowest batting average of all starting position players at .260 right now, but also the most RBI’s in the entire program at 17. Marshall would score a run in the 5th, 6th, and 7th inning taking the lead 5-4.

Austin Rodriguez would be the answer in the bottom of the 7th inning with a double down the left-field line, scoring right fielder Kenny Meimerstorf, and bringing the game to 5 runs per team.

For the second time that weekend, Marshall would score the last run of the game in the top of the 8th inning off an RBI single off the bat of DJ Gee and with that take the third game of the series, and the series itself.

Over the weekend, Head Coach Turtle Thomas said, “Marshall is a very good team, they’ve been hot lately…the last few games, they’ve been on absolute fire”. This is a fire that his team is going to have to hope rubbed off on them, because 2-4 against CUSA teams is not going to cut it.

If they’re relying on a late-season surge like they did last season, I’m not sure they’ll get it. On the offensive end, they’re batting almost 30 points higher than they did last year, but from everything I’ve seen, hitting isn’t the problem.

This year’s pitching staff pales in comparison to last year’s. As of right now, FIU is on pace to give up almost 100 more hits to opposing batters by the end of this season.

The Panthers had a short break from C-USA play on their short trip Tuesday, March 29, up to “The World’s Most Famous Beach” in Daytona, to play a game Bethune Cookman University.

Soon after they’ll be headed to San Antonio Texas on Friday, April 1 to take on the University of Texas at San Antonio and have another hack at a Conference USA opponent.