The College of Staten Island baseball team opened up their season with a pair of wins today against Grove City College and improved to 2-0 on the year. With the loss Grove City College falls to 4-6 on the year and will head back to Pennsylvania to continue their season. The Dolphins will spend the next two days in South Carolina playing against Washington College and Catholic University of America.
The Dolphins took game one of this afternoon’s series with a 4-2 decision. Brian Russell threw a total 86 pitches in a complete game and only allowed two hits in the first game. Russell struck out eight batters with no walks however, the Dolphins found themselves in a 2-0 hole before Joe Palmeri and Elijah Rodriguez singled in the bottom of the sixth to put a man on first and second.
Frank Smith stepped up to the plate and took a sign from coach Mike Mauro and bunted down the third base line and beat out the throw to load up the bases. Greg Manassa came to the plate with the bases loaded and hit a deep single to bring in two runs to tie up the game at two. The Dolphins would ride that momentum for the rest of the game as Frank Sconzo came up and crushed a triple to bring in two more runs as the Dolphins found themselves on the winning side of a 4-2 decision.
Game two of the afternoon for the Dolphins saw a much higher scoring affair. Ryan Fitzpatrick pitched five and a third innings and allowed five runs on 9 hits. Fitzpatrick struck out two batters and didnt walk any batters. Fitzpatrick was pulled when the Dolphins had a dominant 12-5 lead, Storz supplanted Fitzpatrick and allowed five more runs before Jason Failla came in to shut the game down and solidfy the Dolphins’ 12-10 victory for their second win in a row.
Frank Muzzio finished the game with two hits and two RBIs while Smith had a team high three hits and two RBIs. Francis Munoz had two hits and a team high three RBIs.
Glenn Glennerster, Muzzio, and Rodriguez all got their first career hits while Russell got his first career win as a pitcher.
The Dolphins will take on Washington University at 3:00 PM in the first of two games. CSI will look to continue their win streak going and come out of tomorrow’s double header with a 4-0 record.
