Box Score

AUBURNDALE, Fla. – Baseball people might call it "small ball" but when executed well it can produce big numbers. The Edgewood College baseball team used 18 hits, 17 of them singles, four sacrifice bunts and two sacrifice flies to blow past St. Norbert College 16-7 on Thursday afternoon. The Eagles have now won five straight games in Florida after dropping their season opener to Division II Christian Brothers.

Edgewood College (5-1) blew the game open with eight unanswered runs in the middle innings. The Eagles and Green Knights were tied at three when Joe Gura and Ryan Walker delivered RBI single in the fourth inning to give the Eagles the lead for good.

Edgewood College added two more runs in the fifth on another RBI single by Gura and one by Ryan O'Dell. O'Dell, a freshman from West Chicago, Ill., went 5-for-6 at the plate with the Eagles' lone double and three runs batted in. O'Dell becomes only the fifth Eagle ever to record five hits in a game and the first since Jimy Landwehr went 5-for-6 against Lakeland College on April 11, 2009.

The Eagles blew open the game with a four-run sixth inning. A single by Walker, a St. Norbert error and a hit by pitch loaded the bases with nobody out. After Walker scored on one of the Green Knight's seven wild pitches, Mike Selvaggi singled, Scott Ortega hit a sacrifice fly and O'Dell delivered an RBI groundout to give the Eagles an 11-3 lead.

Starting pitcher Miles Mayer gave up a run and three hits in the first inning, but escaped by striking out three straight hitters. Other than the first inning and a two-run home run by Jared Yost in the third, Mayer was in control, allowing three runs on seven hits over five innings for his first win of the season. Freshman Marc Ostrowski pitched the final four innings for the first save of his career.

After O'Dell, Gura and Jake Zadra each had three hits to lead the Eagles' biggest offensive output of the season. Selvaggi had two hits and three runs batted in. In addition to Selvaggi, Walker and Ortega also had two base hits on the day. The Eagles scored at least one run in every inning except the third.

Jordan Powers matched O'Dell's production with a 5-for-6 day of his own to lead St. Norbert College (3-5). Yost added three hits, including his home run. Bryan Stoppenbach took the loss for the Green Knights, allowing seven earned runs and delivering five wild pitches in five innings, to fall to 0-2 on the year.

Edgewood College faces perennial Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletics Conference contender St. Olaf College in a doubleheader on Friday. The Oles are 4-0 on the season and playing their first games of their Florida trip against the Eagles.