St. Mary's City, Md. – The St. Mary's College of Maryland baseball team extended their win streak to three straight as junior RHP Michael Victory (Westford, Mass./Westford Academy) pitched 7.2 shutout innings and fanned a career-best 12 batters in a 2-0 non-conference win for the Seahawks over The City College of New York Sunday afternoon at the Hawk's Nest.
The Seahawks (4-2), playing in their first home series of the spring, earned their first shutout of the season in completing the three-game sweep of CCNY (0-3).
After three scoreless innings, senior leftfielder Joey Kavanagh (Huntingtown, Md./Huntingtown) put the Seahawks on the board in the bottom of the fourth. Following junior designated hitter Nick Urso's (Newtown, Conn./Newtown) triple to the right field corner to lead off the inning, Kavanagh laced sophomore starter Andrew Mulvey's (College Point, N.Y./Holy Cross) next pitch through the left side, easily scoring Urso. Kavanagh then moved into scoring position on a wild pitch. After senior first baseman Ian Simpson-Shelton (Upper Marlboro, Md./DeMatha) drew a walk, sophomore catcher Stefano Muscatelli (Warwick, R.I./Toll Gate) bunted the ball back to the mound, and Mulvey threw wide of the bag to load the bases. No. 9 hitter Bobby Corton (Owings Mills, Md./Calvert Hall) grounded into a 6-3 double play, allowing Kavanagh to plate the Seahawks' second run. Mulvey got out of the inning without any further damage by getting leadoff hitter Matt Baden (Huntingtown, Md./Huntingtown) to fly out to center.
Victory would not allow a Beaver base runner past first base for the next three innings and struck out the first two batters of the eighth. But designated hitter Raymie Fernandez (New York, N.Y.), Michael Perez (Bronx, N.Y./South Bronx) and Michael Smith (Washingtonville, N.Y./Washingtonville) cracked three straight base hits to load the bases with two outs. Victory was lifted for sophomore lefthander Wick Eisenberg (Towson, Md./Friends), who needed just one pitch to halt the rally, getting Chris Lounsbury (Washingtonville, N.Y./Washingtonville) fly out to right.
Eisenberg earned his first career save by striking out the side in the ninth.
Junior right fielder Eric Gronbeck (Owings, Md./Northern) was 3-for-4 on the day for SMCM while Simpson-Shelton had a double and Urso connected on a triple in the fourth inning.
St. Mary's returns to the Hawk's Nest Friday, February 25, hosting Capital Athletic Conference newcomer Frostburg State University for the first game of a three-game series beginning at 2:00 pm.