Box score
SOUTH ORANGE, NJ—The 2009 NJIT baseball team got into the win column behind an ace performance from senior LHP PJ Saporito, who pitched the Highlanders to a complete-game 2-1 win over Iona Saturday morning on the second day of the 2009 Strike Out Cancer Tournament hosted by Seton Hall.
Saporito, who did not allow a run until the ninth inning, finished with a complete game, scattering six hits and striking out six while walking two. He has gone the distance in both of his starts, lowering his earned run average to 3.00 (15 innings pitched, five earned runs).
The win did not come easily, however, as the Highlanders managed single runs in the second and seventh innings before Iona got its run in the top of the ninth.
NJIT's first run came when sophomore LF Matt Tomczyk and freshman 1B Dan Moreno opened the bottom of the second with back-to-back doubles. And the Highlanders got what proved to be crucial insurance in the seventh on a two-out RBI single from freshman SS Vincent Del Vecchio, driving home Moreno, who had walked to lead off the inning.
Iona's run in the ninth was set up by 2B Chris Burke's one-out triple. He scored when Saporito induced the second out on a ground ball before closing the game on a fly out.
Burke's run was the fifth scored against NJIT on an out in the first two games of the Strike Out Cancer Tournament (Seton Hall scored four of its runs on outs in a 7-0 win over the Highlanders on Friday).
Runs of that nature can represent a plus for both teams. It's an obvious plus for the hitting team since it puts runs on the board with productive outs. But for the defensive team it usually means avoiding the kind of big innings that so often spell doom.
NJIT got eight hits from six different players, led by Del Vecchio and freshman C Brian Bleakley, each of whom rapped out a pair of hits. The other Highlander hits came from Tomczyk, Moreno, freshman CF Jeffrey Pizzi, and senior 2B Craig Binkiewicz, who is batting .400 in the leadoff spot, with eight hits in 20 at-bats through seven games.
The losing pitcher for Iona was senior RHP Justin Karn (0-2), the first of four hurlers for the Gaels. He allowed three hits and a run in two innings. Six different Gaels got one hit apiece, including Burke's triple in the ninth and a one-out double in the second inning for 3B Nick Rosetti.
NJIT will close out play in the four-team, three-day tournament by taking on Northeastern on Seton Hall's Owen T. Carroll Field on Sunday at 10 am.
Northeastern (8-4) defeated Iona on Friday, 7-2, and lost to Seton Hall, 6-0, on Saturday. The Highlanders lost to Seton Hall on Friday, 7-0, before beating Iona.
Northeastern began March with seven straight wins, but has lost three of its last four, with the win coming against Iona and the losses to Miami of Ohio and #25 Ohio State and then Seton Hall.
