Seton Hall
Seton Hall handles Monmouth, 6-3
Date: April 17, 2019By Robert Ruszkowski
The Seton Hall baseball team was victorious over the Monmouth Hawks by a score of 6-3 on Tuesday afternoon as they travelled to West Long Branch, NJ.
Despite coming into the game with an undefeated record thus far into the season, Brennan O’Neill struggled for the Pirates early on as he gave up two earned runs, three hits, a walk, and a wild pitch in just the first inning of action against the Hawks.
In the second inning, O’Neill’s rough performance continued as he gave up a double, a single, and another walk, but he managed to escape the inning without allowing any more Monmouth players to cross the plate. O’Neill was pulled out of the game after just two innings of work as he threw a total of 42 pitches but failed to record a single strikeout.
The offense finally came alive for the Pirates in the third inning as Tyler Shedler-McAvoy struck a two-RBI Triple to the left-center field gap that allowed both Connor Hood and Alex Clyde to come into score. Sebastiano Santorelli singled on the very next play to bring in Shedler-McAvoy and put Seton Hall on top 3-2 for their first lead of the game which they were able to keep for good.
Nick Payero came in to pitch for the Pirates in the bottom of the third inning as he allowed two men to reach base but quickly worked his way out of trouble by forcing Monmouth to ground into an inning-ending double play.
In the top half of the fourth inning, the Pirates tallied another run and extended their lead to two off an RBI single by Alex Clyde that brought Matt Toke in to score from third base.
In the bottom of the fourth, Payero started out strong again for Seton Hall by striking out the first two batters but then he found himself in a jam with two runners in scoring position thanks to a fielding error and a double to left field that left runners on second and third. However, Payero was able to escape unscathed yet again as the Pirates went into the fifth inning with a 4-2 lead.
The Pirates stranded two men on base in the top of the fifth and Payero came in for his third inning of work in the bottom half of the frame as he walked two batters but struck out two more to finish his outing after 3.0 innings.
Seton Hall brought in Blake Espinal to pitch the bottom of the sixth inning, but he let Monmouth tack on another run on a single to right field that inched the Hawks closer 4-3 before Hunter Waldis came in to strike out the first batter he faced to end the inning.
The Pirates then added an insurance run in both the seventh and eighth innings on an RBI single by Christian Del Castillo and on a throwing error that brought Steve Grober in to score, respectively to increase their lead to 6-3.
Hunter Waldis came out again in the seventh and sent Monmouth down 1-2-3 as Ryan McLinskey took over as pitcher in the eighth and retired three of the four batters he faced. However, after Seton Hall brought in Corey Sawyer to close out the game in the ninth, he ran into some trouble with runners on the corners and the tying run at the plate with only one out. Despite this, he retired the next two batters to end the game and picked up his fourth save of the season in the process.
The winning pitcher for the Pirates was Nick Payero as his totals were 52 pitches, four strikeouts, three walks, two hits, and zero runs allowed to move his season record to 1-1.
With the win, Seton Hall improves to 16-17 on the season as Monmouth falls to 14-20-1. The Pirates will take the diamond again on Thursday, April 18th as they will travel to Staten Island, NY to start a three-game home series against the Creighton Bluejays. The first pitch is set for 1:00 pm.
Robert Ruszkowski can be reached at ruszkoro@shu.edu.
