ANN ARBOR, Mich. (May 20, 2022) – The No. 25 Rutgers baseball team took an early 7-2 lead, but was unable to hold on as Michigan rallied for 7 unanswered runs to finish off a 9-7 victory and clinch the three-game series in Ann Arbor.
"We scored and then we need a shut down and we don't get it from our starter. And then we score again and we need a shut down and we don't get it," head coach
Steve Owens said. "They mixed and matched us in the middle of the game with some soft stuff. We were chasing a little bit after that, trying to do too much. When we score the number of runs that we scored early in the game, you expect to win. But we have got to pitch better going into the Big Ten Tournament to have a chance to win."
The Scarlet Knights jumped out to an early lead when
Mike Nyisztor roped an RBI triple into the left-center gap to score
Tony Santa Maria. After the Wolverines evened it up on an error, RU hung a 4-spot in the third to take a 5-1 lead.Â
All of those runs in the third came with two outs, as a
Chris Brito single,
Tony Santa Maria 2-run triple and
Evan Sleight single pushed 4 across.Â
UM got a run back in the third on a sac fly before
Danny DiGeorgio helped Rutgers once again extend its lead. After extending his hitting streak to 20 games on an RBI single, DiGeorgio came all the way around to score from first on a dropped fly ball.Â
Like the first game on Thursday night, Friday would prove to be an action-packed back-and-forth affair. UM evened the game at 7-7 by scoring 2 runs on wild pitches and then a Joe Stewart 3-run homer with two outs in the fourth. After a scoreless fifth, the Wolverines took an 8-7 lead on an RBI double in the sixth. They added another in the eighth on a double, wild pitch and suicide squeeze to push it to 9-7.
Although RU got a pinch-hit single from
Richie Schiekofer in the eighth and one-out walk from
Danny DiGeorgio in the ninth, the Scarlet Knights were unable to extend the game late.Â
The series finale between Rutgers and Michigan is scheduled for Saturday at 5 p.m. on the Big Ten Network.
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