Feb. 18, 2005

Box Score

The sky was perfectly clear on Friday afternoon in Charleston, S.C., but the George Mason baseball team was praying for rain. The skies stayed clear, however, and the Patriots were unable to pull themselves out of a 7-0 hole as Mason dropped the 2005 season opener to Charleston Southern, losing 11-5.

Mason starter Eric Gibbons got little help from his defense, which committed four errors on the day, three in the second innning as Charleston Sothern scored three times in the first and three times in the second. Gibbons did not make it out of the third inning as he absorbed the loss.

While Mason gave away four outs in the field, the Patriots also were thrown out twice on the bases, and were also called for runner's interference, giving away three outs on the base paths. The seond through fourth batters in the Mason order were 0 for 11 while Charleston Southern's two through four were 9 for 16.

Despite the lack of production from the top of the order, Mason still managed to make it a close game. After seven innings, the Patriots had rallied to make it 7-5. Casey Slattery was 4 for 4 with a pair of RBI while Robby Jacobsen was 2 for 4 with a pair of runs. But just when the Patriots got close, Charleston Southern reasserted itself.

Phil Stone pitched five and one-third strong innings of relief for Mason but he tired in the eighth, giving up a solo home run to Brian Sole. In the ninth, Jordan Haar hit a two-run homer off of Mike Puckli as part of a three-run inning that allowed Charleston Southern to improve to 5-5 on the year.

The Patriots will look to get their first win of the year on Saturday morning when they take on Appalachian State at 11 a.m. Charleston Southern will face Kentucky later in the day at 2:30 p.m. On Sunday, Mason will conclude the season-opening tournament by facing Kentucky at 11 a.m.