PISCATAWAY, N.J. (April 1, 2022) – The Rutgers baseball team (19-6, 3-1 Big Ten) earned a hard-fought win against Minnesota (8-16, 0-1 Big Ten) on Friday afternoon at Bainton Field.
 
The game featured two of the best starters in the conference in Jared Kollar and Sam Ireland, who each had strong outings.
 
RU took advantage when the Golden Gophers showed small cracks, with Danny DiGeorgio scoring the opening run after reaching on a close infield single and getting to second on a wild pitch. Later in the first inning, Evan Sleight scored from first when Minnesota's second baseman and right fielder let a pop up from Tony Santa Maria drop between them. With Santa Maria going to second, the throw went there, and Sleight was able to score.
 
Josh Kuroda-Grauer lifted a solo home run in the second inning to make it 3-0 early. He would add an RBI single in the sixth and finished the day 2-for-4 with a HR and 2 RBI.
 
After five innings of play, the game was halted due to rain. When the teams took the field after the short delay, Kollar would walk a batter and leave up a breaking ball for Jack Kelly to hit out of the park to make it 3-2.
 
The Scarlet Knights had a quick answer, pushing two across in the bottom half, thanks to two walks to start the frame. While Minnesota would score two unearned runs, Dale Stanavich would slam the door with his sixth save of the season on 1.1 perfect innings.
 
"We had three two-out RBI hits to just extend the game a little," head coach Steve Owens said of the game. "Minnesota has seven left-handed hitters, they can swing the bats. Jared Kollar was really good. I think he had another inning or two in him, but he got stuck in a delay. We passed the ball over to Sam Bello, who gave us 1.2 innings and then Dale Stanavich was really good."
 
After getting out to an early lead, Rutgers had answers for Minnesota's comeback attempts and was able to lock down the win with another strong performance from the back end of its bullpen.
 
Jared Kollar would get through 6.0 innings and tie a Rutgers- best mark of 10 strikeouts, while allowing 2 runs on four hits.
 
"It was just a tough game," Owens said, "We got into their bullpen and used three or four of their better guys. Unfortunately, because of the weather, we have to play a doubleheader tomorrow for the fourth time this year. It'll be a long, hard day tomorrow and we'll see if we can win a series."

 

SCORING

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The Scarlet Knights and Minnesota will wrap up their series with a doubleheader tomorrow, with game one set for 11:00 a.m. at Bainton Field.
 
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