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NEWARK, NJ—Visiting Stetson took control of its Atlantic Sun Conference baseball game at NJIT Sunday afternoon with an eight-run fourth inning and the Hatters coasted to an 11-3 victory and a sweep of the three-game weekend series between the teams.
 
The Hatters, who never trailed at any time in the three games, raised their conference record to 8-7 and their overall mark to 24-23 with the win. NJIT is 2-12 in the A-Sun and 17-29 overall.
 
Stetson broke a scoreless tie with two runs in the top of the third inning on a two-out, two-run home run to right center field by senior RF John Fussell.
 
On a roster dominated by native Floridians, Fussell is a rarity, hailing from Briarcliff Manor in Westchester County, NY. Playing about 45 miles from his family's home, Fussell thrived this weekend. He was 2-for-3 on Sunday and 6-for-10 in the series, with a double, two home runs, five runs scored and six batted in.
 
Stetson blew the game wide open with its eight-run fourth inning that included a statistical oddity when 3B Cory Reid hit the ball over the fence with the bases loaded, but was credited with a 3-run "single" when he ran past 2B Matt Morales, who had been the runner on first base when Reid hit the ball over the fence.
 
Morales, apparently thinking Reid's ball was in play and had been caught, retreated to first base and Reid ran past him between first and second base, making Reid out on the play.
 
Stetson C Austin Hale hit a conventional three-run homer later in the inning, with the Hatters plating eight runs on eight hits in the frame.
 
Hale was the last batter faced by the NJIT starting pitcher, Bryan Haberstroh (1-4), who was charged with 10 runs on 10 hits, with two walks and four strikeouts in 3.2 innings.
 
Sophomore RHP Tommy Derer came in to get the last out of fourth inning and he worked a scoreless fifth inning for the Highlanders.
 
Although NJIT was swept, Derer's weekend offered some encouragement. Before A-Sun play began, Derer owned a strong 1-1 record, with three saves and a 2.28 earned run average in 13 relief appearances. And that came after a freshman season in 2015 that saw him post a team-best 2.17 ERA, with two wins and two saves in 16 relief appearances.
 
Things did not go well for the sophomore once A-Sun play started and in a rough stretch that covered most of April, he allowed runs in six of eight appearances. However, he had a scoreless non-conference outing at Fairfield on May 3, a 1-2-3 inning vs. Stetson on Saturday and then a scoreless 1.1 innings, with one hit, against Stetson on Sunday.
 
Indeed, the entire bullpen did what may have been its best collective work so far in a conference game. Sophomore John Saviano, who had not had a clean inning in four previous A-Sun appearances, followed Derer on Sunday and blanked the Hatters on one hit over three innings.
 
And Brian Sondergard, a sophomore left-hander, who had allowed seven runs in his previous inning-and-a-third over three appearances, allowed an unearned run without a hit in pitching Sunday's ninth inning. Sondergard allowed just one earned run in his first eight appearances before the three-game skid that ballooned his season ERA from 1.23 to 8.31.
 
Stetson's winning pitcher was starter Ben Onyshko (2-0, a sophomore lefty who allowed three hits and four walks in five complete innings, but managed to keep NJIT off the scoreboard after stranding two runners in scoring position in both the fourth and fifth innings.
 
The second (Erik Wiebke) and fourth (Josh Thorne) Stetson pitchers held the Highlanders without a run or a hit in a combined 3.2 innings. But freshman RHP Joey Gonzalez, the third pitcher for the Hatters, was charged with three runs (two earned) in a third of an inning and it might have been more if not for a heads-up defensive play by Jorge Flores, who entered the game in the bottom of the sixth inning at catcher.
 
Trailing 10-0 entering the bottom of the eighth inning, the Highlanders used two hits and two walks, plus a Stetson error, to get runners on first and third with two out and three runs already in.
 
Josh Thorne, the fourth pitcher for Stetson, uncorked an apparent wild pitch. However, Flores, playing the carom off the backstop, threw to home, where Thorne put the tag on NJIT's Edgar Badaraco of the Highlanders, who was trying to score from third base, for the last out of the inning with NJIT's season RBI leader, Evan Pietronico, batting.
 
Stetson added the unearned ninth-inning run against Sondergard in the top of the ninth inning and Thorne closed the game for the Hatters with three outs on three fly balls in the bottom.
 
Victorious Stetson ended with 12 hits that included 10 singles and the home runs by Fussell and Hale, with those two joining Morales and Reid with two hits each.
 
Jesse Uttendorfer's fourth-inning double was the only extra-base hit among NJIT's five knocks in the game and the three Highlanders runs batted in came from three different men—Uttendorfer, 3B Tom Brady, and RF Michael Anastasia. C Cody Kramer (2-for-3) was the only Highlander with more than one hit.
 
Stetson, based in DeLand, FL, has a rich baseball tradition under the direction of 1972 alumnus Pete Dunn, who is in his 37th season as head coach. The program has sent 10 players on to the major leagues, most notably Corey Klueber (Indians), who was the 2014 American League Cy Young Award winner and Jacob deGrom (Mets), who won National League Rookie of the Year in the same season.
 
NJIT is off this week until Friday, when it visits A-Sun rival Jacksonville for the first of a three-game set in Florida. Friday's game is scheduled for a 6 pm start. Stetson, which has finished classes for the semester, will remain in New Jersey for a non-conference game at Monmouth on Monday afternoon before flying out later that evening.