CHESTERTOWN, MD (NJCUGothicKnights.com) | New Jersey City University junior left-hander DELIO COUTINHO (Colonia, NJ/Colonia) became the first player on record in school history to register three double-digit strikeout efforts in a career—doing so for the second consecutive outing—and three Gothic Knight pitchers combined on a four-hit shutout as NJCU banged out 17 hits and crushed Washington College (Md.), 16-0, in non-conference action on March 22.
 
NJCU (3-8) recorded back-to-back shutouts for only the second time on record and the first time since 1981 as Coutinho (2-1) went 6.2 innings, striking out 10 without issuing a walk (two hit by pitch), scattering four singles. Coutinho, who equaled a program modern-day record with 14 strikeouts in his last start (March 13), struck out three batters in the first inning, one in the second, two in the fourth and fifth, one in the sixth and two in the seventh before being relieved.
 
Freshman right-hander MARK PETRUCELLI (Wood-Ridge, NJ/Queen of Peace) tossed 1.1 perfect innings of relief with one strikeout while freshman righty JOE STONE (Metuchen, NJ/JFK-Iselin)  threw the ninth inning, striking out one batter as the two rookies did not allow a hit. Washington only had one man reach second base in the entire game—on a fifth inning wild pitch.
 
Meanwhile, NJCU, which had only batted .216 in its first 10 games of the season and had been outscored 71-33, had its bats awaken with authority against a Shoremen (7-7) team it had lost to, 12-3, a year ago. Sophomore catcher ANDREW NIECH (Avenel, NJ/Colonia) batted 4-for-6 with two RBIs, and three runs scored, sparking NJCU to a 10-0 lead after three innings—four runs in the first, and three in the second and third frames—before pouring on a half dozen more runs in the eighth as 12 men came to the plate. In all, 11 different Gothic Knights collected a hit in the win and 18 played.
 
"One thing we stressed to this team since the beginning of the season is to be patient and play one game at a time," said third-year head coach Jerry Smith,whose team started a surprising 1-8 with a number of tight and late losses, after not having a single outdoor practice due to poor weather. "The potential our team has when we are playing all phases of the game is unlimited. Up until this point, we had games where we didn't hit, where we're making errors and it was us beating ourselves much of the time more than anything."
 
Smith commended Coutinho by saying "that's exactly what we expect from him. He attacks hitters and he has good stuff. He's the ace of our staff and we always knew what he was capable of—it was just a matter of getting him healthy [Tommy John surgery, 2012] and it's good to see him out there healthy and pitching for us.Petrucelli and Stone will be vital for us down the stretch. When we play four NJAC and one out-of-conference game [each week] we'll be relying heavily on them. Mark has given up a lot of seeing-eye hits and had a little bad luck but he's been pitching very well. With Joe, we're concentrating on building up his pitch count because he's going to be a conference starter. He also pitched very well. It was good to see them leave on a positive today."

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