Offense comes to life in first conference series win

Louis Agudelo/ Staff Writer

For first time this season, the Panthers won a series on the road against another team in Conference USA.

The Panthers finished their short, four game road-trip at the University of Texas at San Antonio, winning two out of the three games against the Roadrunners of UTSA and three out of four on the trip,with their defeat of the Bethune-Cookman Wildcats 21-8, while hitting five home runs as a team.

It would be tough to replicate the offense that FIU displayed on Tuesday, March 29, at Bethune-Cookman. Their attempt to at least resemble what they did against the Wildcats, against the Roadrunners of UTSA would be nothing more than that.

Seven hits as a collective was a weak showing for a team and below the norm for this offense. It wasn’t all bad for the entire FIU team, as catcher Zack Soria had a great day at the plate again, batting .324 on the season and accounting for three of those seven team hits.

Soria, like four other runners was left on base twice, as 15 runners were left on base on this Friday night for the Panthers.

Right hander Andres Nunez (2-2) could have used at least one of these runs, if not four, to combat the four runs he gave up in his start. In one of his longest starts of the season, he went seven ⅔ innings.

The strikeouts weren’t really coming in abundance for the first pitcher in the rotation, only recording two, but there was plenty of support in the field defensively and for only the second time this season, there were no errors committed in a game Nunez pitched in.

Those four runs were earned and a couple more unearned for the UTSA carried the Roadrunners to a 6-0 win Friday, April 1.

The Panthers could ill afford to lose another series to a CUSA team this early in the schedule, and they were obviously aware of that early Saturday afternoon. After walking the bases loaded and giving up a two run single to first baseman Nick Day in the top of the first inning, all without recording an out, UTSA pitcher, and former U.S. National Cricket team player Karan Patel was removed from the game.

An Irving Lopez single would score Zach Files before the top half of the first inning ended, giving FIU a 3-0 lead.

The Roadrunners had no plans of laying down to the defending CUSA Champs and they scored three runs of their own in the bottom half of the inning, knotting the game up at three and virtually taking everyone back to square-one.

FIU and UTSA would exchange runs again in the third inning and the score would be 4-4 going into the top of the fourth inning. With no outs, an RBI double from third baseman Eddie Silva would put the Panthers up by one run.

Nick Day would follow that by keeping his great day going and hitting a sacrifice fly to score second baseman Rey Perez, and make the score 6-4 FIU. Those four runs for UTSA were all that Chris Mourelle(4-2) would allow on Saturday, April 2, in yet another mostly dominant start, striking out as many batters as hits, with six.

The next inning, the Panthers would keep their paws on the Roadrunners’ throat, scoring 5 more runs before the bleeding stopped. With the game now 12-4 in the Panthers’ favor, the rest of the game would go by quietly, no more runs for either side in the last three and a half innings and the series would be tied up at a game a piece.

FIU began Sunday, April 3, against UTSA, who was 2-6 against CUSA teams, 3-5 in conference play. Both teams desperately needed a win to at least draw closer to even and they played like it.

The Roadrunners, technically in a worse position than the Panthers, put a couple runners on base in the first to try to jump out to an early lead. Both would be left on base, to begin a trend in this series’ rubber match that would lead to their eventual demise.

FIU starting pitcher Garrett Cave (2-2) would give UTSA plenty of opportunities to score, walking six batters, but with four strikeouts, as well as only allowing three hits in his five innings, they could only gather two runs against him.

Those two runs didn’t come until the end of Cave’s start and would be just the motivation the Panther offense needed to get things started.

The FIU offense would post seven runs in the sixth and seventh inning, with a Rey Perez two-run double coming in the sixth and in the seventh an Eddie Silva RBI single and a home run from right fielder Kenny Meimerstorf.

Nick Day would hit a solo home run to help the cause in the top of the ninth inning, putting what seemed to be the dagger in the side of the Roadrunners and the exclamation point on the road trip with FIU’s 11th hit on Sunday.

UTSA made one last run at the win, scoring two runs in the bottom half of the ninth inning on two run single, but FIU sophomore Williams Durruthy would get out of the jam with his team leading third save of the season, the game’s final score 8-4.

The Panthers will have a chance Friday, April 8, to win another game against a CUSA team and even their record in Conference USA at 5-5 when the Old Dominion University Monarchs visit the Panthers in Miami.

They’ll play another game on Saturday, April 9,  and finish their three-game series up on Sunday, April 10, before Bethune-Cookman University makes the short trip south from Daytona to try and redeem themselves after giving up 26 hits and committing three errors against the Panthers in their last contest.