FIU Baseball Rallies & Rebounds Over Owls In Middle Game Of Series

MIAMI, FL – After falling to a final score of 4-1 on Friday night, the Panthers came in on Saturday afternoon looking for revenge against the FAU Owls. After all, game two was played at their ballpark.

“It’s a great rivalry,” said head coach Rich Witten postgame. “We certainly want to play well against those guys. They’ve got a good program that they’ve established over the last, decade.”

The pitching matchup for Saturday was Owen Puk for FIU going up against Florida Atlantic’s Trey Beard.

Puk got into trouble early on, loading up the bases and giving up a grand slam in the top of the first inning, but all runs were unearned. Puk went on to strike out seven Owls and only give up two hits, one hit being the four-run bomb.

He ended up walking two. For the junior pitcher, this was his best outing of the season. He also had his highest pitch total of the season at 53. Expect that to go up about ten more pitches in his next outing.

For Beard, the movement on his pitches was certainly what you wanted to see, a slow release that caused a lot of swings and misses stood out, but the Panthers were able to come back and score four runs of their own.

With the bases loaded, a situation FIU was in Friday night, Jeff Liquori drove in two runs. On Friday, Liquori was the second out in the top of the eighth inning. FIU made it a ballgame, down 4-2.

Kishon Frett, who struck out with the bases loaded on Friday took Beard deep to make it a 4-3 game. That was Frett’s sixth home run on the season and his first against the rival Owls.

The tying run came in the bottom of the fourth inning. Chase Engelhard got the inning going with a double to left center. Engelhard advanced to third on a balk and all catcher Brendan Roney had to do was ground to short so the Tulane transfer could score, tying the game at four apiece.

Entering for Owen Puk was Orlando Hernandez who has been lethal for FIU this season. He was as lethal as he had been all season for the Panthers this season. Hernandez went four shutout innings, struck out two, and only gave up one hit. Didn’t walk anyone. He set the way for Ryan Cabarcas.

In a tie game, FIU loaded the bases up in the bottom of the eighth inning. Florida Atlantic intentionally walked Chase Engelhard for what seemed like a more favorable matchup for pitcher Sam Drumheller against Brendan Roney.

The Panthers catcher was hit by a pitch and it drove in the fifth run of the game.

The following hitter, Andre Martinez, knocked in two more runs, making it a 7-4 lead, which would be the final score.

“I tell our guys that baseball is a game of averages,” said Witten. “We’re in close games, and we come up in that spot more times than not. I feel good about our group and we got a chance to do it again today and we came through.”

With the win, FIU moves to 9-6 on the season and will head back up to Boca on Saturday to decide who will win the series. The game will start at noon and can be seen on the FAU website. Joel Pineiro will take the mound for FIU.