Box score (game 1)
Box score (game 2)
MORGANTOWN, WV--West Virginia, among the strongest baseball teams NJIT will face this year, took two more games from the Highlanders Sunday, defeating the young visitors, 5-2 and 30-3, to take all four games of their weekend series.
West Virginia (7-3) had already beaten Indiana and Northwestern of the Big Ten and traditional national power Tennessee and reached double-figure run totals in all three wins before hosting the Highlanders in a pair of doubleheaders on Saturday and Sunday.
NJIT, playing its first games of the season, lost Saturday's doubleheader, 19-0 and 13-3.
Against that background, Highlander coach Brian Callahan handed the ball to his most accomplished pitcher, senior LHP PJ Saporito, for Sunday's first game. And the coach then turned to sophomore RHP Matt Tomczyk, who had never pitched in a college game, to start Sunday's nightcap.
Saporito was the staff ace, posting a 6-5 won-lost record when NJIT made a strong transition to Division I competition, winning 15 games as a team in 2007. Last year, he struggled along with the entire pitching staff. This year, anchoring a young pitching staff and young overall team, the crafty left-hander will look for a return to his 2007 form.
The signs of a return to form for Saporito were good in his first 2009 start, as he quieted the explosive Mountaineers, holding a team that has reached double-figure scoring in seven of their 10 games this season to five runs. Only Minnesota of the Big Ten held West Virginia to a lower total in nipping the Mountaineers, 5-4, on February 27.
Saporito went six innings, allowing five runs (four earned) without a walk or a strikeout.
West Virginia got a pair of runs against Saporito in the bottom of the first inning, but the Highlanders drew even on two runs of their own in the top of the second inning,
Freshman C Brian Bleakley reached on an error leading off and freshman 3B Dan Moreno followed with a single and kept going to second as Bleakley came around for NJIT's first run on a WVU error. Freshman CF Jeffrey Pizzi singled in the tying run later in the inning,
The 2-2 tie lasted into the bottom of the third inning when West Virginia got what proved to be the game-winner on an unearned run. SS Jedd Gyorko led off and got on base due to an error and then was sacrificed to second base. C Tobias Streich, who would homer in Sunday's second game, doubled to bring in Gyorko with the game-winning run in the opener.
The Mountaineers added a pair of runs in the fourth inning for a 5-2 lead that stayed that way until the end. Freshman RHP Justin Ellis (1-0) was the winning pitcher, while RHP Chris Enourato earned his second save by pitching a scoreless seventh inning for the Mountaineers. Ellis allowed six hits and walked one, while striking out seven.
LF Justin Parks led West Virginia's offense, going 3-for-4 in the leadoff spot, while Gyorko was 2-for-3.
Six different Highlanders got one hit apiece. All six hits were singles.
Tomczyk worked mostly as a catcher as a freshman in 2008, filling a team need, even though he had never played the position before college. This year, his primary position will be outfield. However, the Highlander pitching staff took some unexpected personnel hits since last August, creating a need for other players to step in. Possessing a good arm and the same team-first attitude made him volunteer to catch last year, Tomczyk got the nod to start NJIT's fourth game in two days.
West Virginia, which poured 15 runs across the plate in the first inning, finished with 30 runs on 32 hits against four NJIT pitchers. Tomczyk, thrown into the deep end of the pool, was tagged with loss.
Not surprisingly, 11 Mountaineers had multiple-hit games in the nightcap, paced by 2B Vince Belnome and 3B Dan DiBartolomeo, each of whom banged out five hits. Belnome drove in a team-leading five runs and DiBartolomeo was the scoring leader, crossing the plate four times.
WVU starter RHP Marcus Broadwater (1-2) got the win, allowing six hits, four walks and two runs in six innings.
Moreno, the freshman 3B, picked up a pair of hits for the Highlanders, going 2-for-3, while 3B John Berner came off the bench for the team's only extra-base hit, a run-scoring double.
The Highlanders will continue their difficult early schedule, visiting Rutgers for a 3 pm game on Wednesday.
