The Oglethorpe baseball team roared to life over the latter half of Friday's contest with the visiting Curry Colonels at Anderson Field, turning a 2-0 deficit into an 8-2 victory to improve to 2-2 on the young season. The Stormy Petrels didn't collect a hit for 4 2/3 innings Friday, but answered with 8 runs and 8 hits over their final 3 1/3 innings at the plate and pulled away from Curry.
Junior right-hander Matt Davis collected his first victory of the season with a solid 7 innings of work. He allowed 2 runs on 6 hits while striking out 9 Colonels and walking 3 of them, to go with a hit batsman. He gave up single runs in the first and fourth innings, the former coming on back-to-back 2-out hits and the latter coming on a leadoff home run, but seemed to pitch better as the game continued. He stranded a Curry runner in scoring position five separate times over the course of the game.
The Petrels got a 1-out walk from junior designated hitter Bobby Rezac in the fifth, then freshman shortstop Sam Held followed with Oglethorpe's first hit of the game, a solid single up the middle. Junior pinch hitter Corey Hamm walked and junior center fielder Jarvis Miller followed by reaching on a 2-base error, allowing the Petrels to tie the game.
They took the lead in the seventh after putting runners at the corners with nobody out. Miller singled to right field to give the Petrels the lead and senior first baseman Austin Ferlita followed with a 3-run bomb to break the game open. Oglethorpe added two more runs in the eighth on a Hamm RBI groundout and another run-scoring single from Miller.
The Petrels also got some very good relief work from freshmen Preston Vegotsky and Chris Woodard. The two combined for 2 shutout innings, allowing a single hit and striking out a combined 4 Curry hitters.
Ferlita led the way for the Petrels with his 3-run homer, while Miller finished 2-for-5 with 2 RBIs and a run scored.
"I really like the way we stuck with the game plan offensively and ground out some at-bats," said Oglethorpe head coach Dan Giordano. "We were finally able to break through and get those big hits. Matt Davis was really good again. He just battled for us and gave us a chace to win. We're looking to continue the momentum tomorrow."
The Petrels will take on the Colonels Saturday at 4 p.m. from Anderson Field, which represents a change to the originally scheduled time of 1 p.m., due to forecast rain in the area during the morning. The two teams will finish up the series on Sunday at noon.