PISCATAWAY, N.J. (May 20, 2010) – Junior Pat Biserta (Pt. Pleasant, N.J.) tripled home a run and scored the game-winning run in a two-run eighth inning to lead Rutgers to a 2-1 victory over St. John’s in the BIG EAST baseball series opener Thursday afternoon at Bainton Field.
With the win, the Scarlet Knights improved to 27-23 overall and 14-11 in the BIG EAST and look to move into a tie with USF for fifth place in the conference standings. The Bulls, who RU owns a tiebreaker over, play at Pittsburgh Thursday evening. The Scarlet Knights also pulled within a game of the fourth-place Red Storm (35-17, 15-10) with two games remaining in the regular season.
A duel between aces Casey Gaynor (Toms River, N.J.) of Rutgers and Kyle Hansen of St. John’s led to five scoreless frames to open the contest. After surrendering a leadoff single, Gaynor retired 10 straight and struck out four without allowing an earned run in six innings of work. Reliever Nathanie Roe (Plainfield, N.J.) came in for scoreless seventh and eighth frames. Hansen worked seven shutout innings with seven strikeouts and just three hits allowed for the Red Storm.
In Gaynor’s final frame, St. John’s Matt Wessinger reached on an error to lead off the sixth, was sacrificed over to second and moved over to third on a Jeremy Baltz infield single down the third-base line. He later came home on a Greg Hopkins groundout to second base to plate the first run of the game.
Holding a 1-0 lead, Hansen handed the ball to Ryan Cole in the eighth. The Red Storm reliever hit Michael Lang (Dumont, N.J.) to put a man on with one out. Four pitches later, Biserta drilled a ball to the opposite field where the left fielder Baltz unsuccessfully dove to make the catch, allowing the ball to roll farther in the outfielder as Biserta raced around for a triple and Lang came home to tie it up. An opportunistic Steve Nyisztor (Toms River, N.J.) then took Cole’s first offering to right field for an RBI single to plate Biserta and put the Scarlet Knights on top for the first time in the contest.
With the one-run advantage, freshman closer Tyler Gebler (Toms River, N.J.) came in and shut the door on St. John’s, punctuating the victory with a pair of strikeouts to his final two batters as he set the school record with his 10th save of the season.
The freshman broke the previous school mark of nine held by Ryan Molchan (2002) and Brian Stegen (1995). Gebler also moved into a tie with Molchan for seventh on the career saves list.
Roe improved to 3-1 in relief without allowing a hit in his two shutout innings of work, while RU handed Cole (2-1) his first loss of the season.
Gaynor, making his school-record 51st career start and final one at Bainton Field, pulled within nine strikeouts of the Rutgers career strikeout mark of 235 held by Bobby Brownlie from 2000-02. He also extended his school-record career innings total to 310.0. The senior has suffered just two losses in his last nine starts with a 6-2 mark in those contests.
Nyisztor reached base all four times on the day with a walk and a 3-for-3 performance that included driving in the game-winning run.
Rutgers and St. John’s will continue the series with a 1 p.m. game Friday as senior lefty Dennis Hill (Hillsdale, N.J.) pitches for the Scarlet Knights against senior righty Bruce Kern for the Red Storm.
