April 22, 2007

Box Score

The George Mason baseball team once again had to scratch for runs against the Chicago State Cougars and once again they got just enough to help out some superb starting pitching as the Patriots completed a three-game sweep of Chicago State taking the final game 2-1 in non-conference action at Spuhler Field.

Mason got a tremendous start from Dan Gerjets who pitched seven innings and allowed no runs, five hits, one walk while striking out five. The innings pitched and strikeouts were career highs as he lowered his ERA from 4.75 to 3.86. Mason once again struggled to hit with runners in scoring position but they did enough to get a pair of runners home. Mason was just 1 of 14 with runners on and 1 of 10 with runners in scoring position. In their past four games, Mason is just 14 of 65 with runners on and 6 of 38 with runners in scoring position.

The Patriots scored first with a run in the second. Scott Krieger led off with a double to dead center, he went to third on a Justin Bour flyout to center and scored on a Chris Romanow groundout. It stayed 1-0 until the sixth when Chris Henderson led off with a walk, went to second on a sacrifice bunt by Spencer Wiggins and scored on a Krieger single to left.

Gerjets, meanwhile, was effective despite dealing with baserunners in four of his seven innings. In the first, a leadoff double was stranded at third when he struck out Simeon Morgan. In the second, a one-out walk and single did no harm after a groundout and a caught stealing. In the fourth, a pair of singles put runners on first and second with one out but a strikeout-caught stealing double play ended the inning. A two-out single in the fifth did no damage and Gerjets retired the final seven batters he faced to get the game to the eighth.

Jason Koziol relieved Gerjets and he allowed a leadoff walk to Trenton Sanders and a single to Kenneth Williams before striking out Thomas Creal. That's when Jordan Flasher entered the game. After giving up a single to Alex Hall, he struck out Luke Grow. A full-count walk to Morgan made it 2-1 but the inning then came to an end on Bryan Packard's grounder to short. Flasher stuck out the side in the ninth for a five-out save. He now has nine saves on the year, one shy of tying the school's single season record set in 1986 by Steve Kann.

The Patriots will return to action on Tuesday when they play on the road for just the second time since April 3 as Mason take on Liberty at 3 p.m.