May 9, 2007 - Rider 18 Temple 7
May 9, 2007
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
College Baseball
Rider University 18, Temple University 7
LAWRENCEVILLE—The Broncs scored a season-high 18 runs in a come-from-behind win over Temple Wednesday. "We were able to put a couple of things together today," said Rider head coach Barry Davis. "We swung the bats and were able to create some thing that we haven’t been able to do lately."
Red-shirt freshman Matt McCollum (Tabernacle/Shawnee) led the hit parade with five hits, including a double, and added three RBI and three runs scored. "I’ve never had five hits in a game before," McCollum said. "Maybe five hits in a doubleheader, but not in a single game."
McCollum now has 16 hits in his last six games. "Matt’s hot," Davis said. "I’m felling awesome right now," McCollum said. "It looks like a softball coming in."
Trailing 6-5, freshman Garrett Rugg (Langhorne, PA/Neshaminy) collected his second of three hits on a hit-and-run play, putting runners on first and third. "I thought the hit-and-run really sparked us in the sixth inning," Davis said. "That was a big play."
The Broncs went on to score six runs in the sixth inning when junior David Hayes (Sunrise, Fla) hit a three-run home run, his team-high sixth of the season, to take an 11-6 lead.
With bases loaded in the seventh inning David Hayes hit a long fly ball that, with the runners tagging up, reached the wall for a single. "That was a 410 foot single," Davis said, "but that’s baseball." "That was the longest single I ever hit," David Hayes said.
Sophomore Sean Olson (Vineland/St. Augustine Prep) and David Hayes each added three hits and four RBI for the Broncs, while Rugg, a walk-on, enjoyed his third three-hit game in the last two weeks. Sophomore Jamie Hayes (Sunrise, Fla./Piper) and sophomore Adam Tussey (Brooklawn/Gloucester) each had two hits as well for the Broncs.
Temple (17-31) jumped out to a 1-0 lead on the first pitch of the game, and led 5-0 after scoring four unearned runs in the fourth inning. "That was a good test when they hit the first ball out of the park and then us falling behind 5-0," Davis said.
Rider (17-25) cut the lead to 6-5 in the fifth inning on a two-run triple by Olson.
Freshman Ryan Miller (Montoursville, PA) pitched three shutout innings in relief for his team-high fourth win. "I felt pretty good," Miller said. "I had a couple outings when my stuff wasn’t what it should have been, but today it was pretty hot out and my arm felt good."
"Miller did an outstanding job coming in," Davis said. "He was able to hold them down and give us a chance to score some runs and get back in it. It looked like his velocity was there. He could have gone longer but we wanted to get him out of there and have him ready for this weekend."
Rider travels to Niagara for a three-game MAAC series this weekend, beginning with a 4pm doubleheader on Saturday. "We’ve got to take this momentum to Niagara this weekend," McCollum said.
"We hit the ball pretty well today, and that was big heading into a big weekend," Miller said. "Hopefully this will be a good motivator for us going into the weekend."
"I’d rather go into this weekend after a performance like this than after having a performance like yesterday (12-1 loss to St. Joseph’s on Tuesday)," Davis said.
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