Louis Agudelo/ Staff Writer
FIU is has dropped even lower in the Conference USA standings after being swept the past weekend of April 8 through 10 by the Old Dominion University Monarchs. The Monarchs came all the way from their home in Norfolk, Virginia, to score three consecutive wins on the Panthers in their home field here in Miami.
On Friday, Andres Nuñez (2-2) was given the ball and an opportunity to make his record a winning one.
Things looked good to start with a strikeout of the first batter of the night, but a couple consecutive hits and a pitch left too high later, Nuñez and the Panthers were down four to zero.
Nuñez would give up another run in the second inning before being pulled out in the bottom of the third after loading the bases. Cody Crouse would come in for relief and although he let up a run on a deep sacrifice fly, would get out of the inning suffering minimal damage.
With all this offense from Old Dominion, the Panthers would have to have something in the form of a response, right? Well, not exactly. Through the first three innings, ODU right hander Sam Sinnen had only allowed one hit.
I say had, because in the bottom half of this fourth inning, he gave up six runs on five hits to FIU bats in the hands of Kenny Meimerstorf, Irving Lopez, Rey Perez, Oliver Francis and Zack Soria.
Sinnen was pulled from the game and replaced by Culver Lamb. Lamb inherited runners on both first and third, and a face off with Zach Files. Files would ground out, but the ground out would score another run, and the Panthers would only be down nine to seven.
The runs just kept coming from the Monarchs.
The rally wouldn’t end there, though, because in the bottom of the fifth, FIU would score four more runs off of hits from Irving Lopez, Rey Perez and Eddie Silva. ODU would tie things up in the top of the seventh amidst and possibly even because of heckling from the home fans.
11-11 was the score then. Zack Soria had a chance to give FIU the lead with runners on second and third, but with two outs, he’d strike out swinging and we’d go on to the eighth.
Two failed pickoff moves advanced to leadoff hitter from first to second and second to third, eventually being hit in by Old Dominion right fielder Nick Walker and the Monarchs would take a 12-11 lead.
The heckling was getting louder from both sides and there were even pleasantries exchanged between the home plate umpire Tony Maners and FIU’s dugout, who had a very inconsistent strike zone on this night.
Maners made multiple errors and a had a lack of production in the later innings that would lead to a heart breaking extra inning loss 12-11 for the Panthers.
Chris Mourelle (4-3) would have similar, if not worse, luck on Saturday night giving up four runs before any of his teammates could step into the batters box.
Luck was on his side though in the bottom of the first, when Nick Day batted in his 15th RBI of the season and Kenny Meimerstorf brought across his team leading 23rd RBI of the season to make the score four to two ODU, but that would be the extent of the scoring in the first for both sides.
If FIU scored any more than twice on Saturday, it didn’t occur on the baseball field, because two runs was all they’d post in this game. Two is also how many strikeouts Mourelle would manage and one of the only things he could really enjoy because giving up six runs, five of them earned can’t have felt great.
The fifth and sixth runs came across for Old Dominion in the eighth inning off of a Kurt Sinnen RBI single and a throwing error. At this point, Saturday’s contest was already seemingly out of reach for the Panthers, but the Monarchs just kept piling on the runs.
Michael Agis came into the ninth inning to pitch for FIU and ODU scored three runs. Agis also allowed five hits that inning and was lucky that there were only three runs scored. If not for the fact that ODU hit two sacrifices and designated hitter Turner Bishop hadn’t rolled his wrists on his swing and grounded out, the ninth could have been a lot uglier.
The bleeding stopped there, but the damage was already done. A strike out, caught foul ball and another strikeout would be the story for FIU’s half of the ninth inning and they’d go down ten to two and lose the first two games of the series.
On Sunday, the Panthers were playing for pride, if nothing else.
Garrett Cave (2-3) only notched two strikeouts for his stat sheet on Sunday, but that is all he’d need to distance himself even more from the rest of the pitching staff as he has the most strikeouts of any pitcher at FIU with 41.
The flashy stats would be of little help to the sophomore and his teammates this weekend. To start off Cave was all over the place, the first run scoring via a wild pitch. Another run would score that inning off of a sacrifice by Connor Myers.
Myers wasn’t done there, though. He’d hit a solo home run in the fifth inning to put his team ahead three to zero. The eighth inning was perhaps the most embarrassing inning of the weekend, when the Panther gave up eight runs and committed two errors.
Old Dominion’s lead was 11-0 before the Panthers scored their first run on a Nick Day RBI single in the bottom of the ninth inning. That would be all for the Panthers’ rally and the Monarchs would complete the three-game sweep with an 11-1 domination in Miami.
While FIU is still batting .310 as a team, their pitching has only gotten worse since the start of the season with a current team ERA of 4.69. They’re dropping in the CUSA standings and fast. The Panthers are tied for third to last place in the conference, are four and eight against conference competition and 15-19 overall.
The Panthers were visited by Bethune-Cookman University on Wednesday, April 13, and they have a weekend road-trip to Ruston, Louisiana to take on Louisiana Tech University on April 15 through the 17. Even if they win all four games this week, they won’t be above .500 in respect to their overall record, or their in-conference record.
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