Baseball Extends Winning Streak to Six at No. 27 Florida Gulf Coast

Saturday, March 17

Fort Myers, Fla.

2:00 PM

Rutgers University

11-6

Florida Gulf Coast

13-5

Rutgers

FGCU

Photo by: Rob Foldy

Baseball Extends Winning Streak to Six at No. 27 Florida Gulf Coast

Mar 17 | Baseball

Box Score Statistics

Rutkowski pitches six innings in victory

FORT MYERS, Fla. – Rutgers baseball won its sixth-straight game and clinched the weekend series at Florida Gulf Coast with a 6-3 victory on Saturday at Swanson Stadium. The Scarlet Knights (11-6) have now taken each of the last three weekends and won a road set over an opponent in the national polls for the first time since March 2013 at No. 4 Louisville.

Freshman Harry Rutkowski (2-0) was sharp to earn his second win, holding the Eagles (13-5) scoreless the first five innings and collecting a season-high seven strikeouts. The left-hander scattered four hits in six innings against the team that entered the weekend ranked seventh in the nation in batting average. Redshirt sophomore Tommy Genuario followed up with 1.1 innings of relief, while freshman Collin Kiernan finished off the eighth. Closing it out, junior Serafino Brito gathered his second save of the year with a scoreless ninth.

The lineup added 10 more hits, with fifth-year senior Chris Folinusz and redshirt sophomore Kevin Blum both picking up two apiece. Blum also scored three runs. Freshman Mike Nyisztor and junior Carmen Sclafani each knocked in two runs to spark the scoring.

After a 1-2-3 first, Rutkowski faced bases loaded in the second before escaping to match FGCU starter Josh Dye. The pitcher's duel continued until the fifth when RU finally broke through. Blum reached with two outs and redshirt freshman Dan DiGeorgio singled to put runners at second and third after the throw went into third base. Nyisztor then delivered a two-run single to bring his team-leading RBI total to 19. Rutgers has scored first in eight consecutive games.

Rutkowski answered with a shutdown inning and the Scarlet Knights tacked on another in the sixth to build a 3-0 lead. The manufactured run came after senior Kyle Walker extended his hitting streak to 12 games with a leadoff double, sophomore Kevin Welsh laid down a sacrifice bunt and junior Tyler McNamara lifted a sacrifice fly.

Florida Gulf Coast chipped back with one on a solo homer in the bottom of the sixth, but Rutgers responded with a three-run outburst. Blum connected for a double to start and DiGeorgio sacrificed him over. Nyisztor then walked and stole second for Sclafani, who hammered a two-run single. Folinusz capped it off with an RBI single of his own to make it 6-1.

Genuario, Kiernan and Brito held on from there to improve the Scarlet Knights to 6-0 on the current spring break trip. Dye (3-1) took his first loss of the season for FGCU, who had won its previous four weekend series at home.

The road trip wraps up Sunday at noon as the Scarlet Knights seek to run the table in Florida.

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