March 15, 2009

Box Score

Fairfax, Va. - The George Mason baseball team completed a series sweep of Lehigh on Sunday, in the process remaining unbeaten at home and pushing their winning streak to seven as the Patriots took a 8-3 win on a rainy cold afternoon. The Patriots took advantage of three Lehigh errors while also getting excellent pitching to improve to 11-3 on the year.

Spencer Wiggins, Chris Henderson and Justin Bour all had multiple hits for Mason and the Patriots got an excellent start out of Dan Gerjets who allowed just one earned run in six and one-third innings.

Lehigh took its first lead of the series in the second inning when Kevin Mihalik and Austin Borden hit back-to-back singles to lead off the inning, they advanced into scoring position on a Billy Swenson sacrifice bunt and Mihalik scored on a Brendan Pifer sacrifice fly.

In the bottom of the third, Mason got on the board with two hits and an error. With one out, Spencer Wiggins singled up the middle and he went to second when Chris Henderson's grounder was mishandled by Geoff Campbell at short. Wiggins and Henderson advanced on a wild pitch and Wiggins scored on Scott Krieger's single to left. Justin Bour's grounder to second brought home Henderson for a 2-1 lead.

In the fourth, Dan Palumbo reached on an infield single and went to second on Brent Weiss' slow roller to short. Campbell couldn't make the play at first with Weiss reaching on the error. Aaron Tenney's fly ball to right moved Palumbo to third, Weiss took second on a stolen base, and both scored on Wiggins' single to left for a 4-1 lead.

Lehigh got two runs back in the fifth as Swenson singled to center and Pifer singled to right and Swenson scored on a Bour error at first. Pifer went to third on the play and he scored on Billy Goldman's sacrifice bunt to make it 4-3. Mason got insurance runs in the bottom of the eighth as Mark Hill and Weiss walked and Hill scored when Ryan Uphouse's sacrifice bunt was thrown away by the pitcher Rob Russell. Hill's run was the 10,000th run in Division I school history.

Uphouse went to second on the play and Weiss to third and they scored on Chris Henderson's single to right. Henderson went to second on the throw, advanced to third on a wild pitch and scored on a Scott Krieger ground out to account for the final run.

Mason last won seven straight in 2005, when they swept Fordham, 25-3, 4-1, 8-2, took a 2-0 win over Virginia Tech, and swept Fairfield, 8-2, 7-2 and 5-1. The Patriots continue their home stand on Monday when the Patriots host Massachusetts at 3 p.m.