March 28, 2011
Box Score
Box Score in PDF Format
SOUTH BEND, Ind. - The UIC baseball team went into Frank Eck Stadium and knocked off the Notre Dame Fighting Irish for the third straight season, besting the Big East foe, 5-3, on Monday night.
Not only was it the third straight win over Notre Dame for UIC (10-10), but it was also its seventh straight win this season.
Freshman Jon Ryan had three RBI, while Steve McGuiggan and Jason Ganek each had multi-hit games to lead the Flames to its fourth road win of the season.
UIC scored first in the top of the second inning, without the benefit of a base hit. Joe Betcher led off the inning with a walk. The sophomore moved to second when Notre Dame (9-12-1) starter Anthony McIver balked. Matt Serna put down a sacrifice bunt to advance Betcher to third. Ryan came up next and got the job done with an RBI groundout to second base to plate Betcher and give the Flames an early 1-0 lead.
Ryan struck again in the fourth inning, delivering a two-out, two-RBI double over the head of right fielder Herman Petzold which scored Alex De LaRosa and Ganek to make it 3-0, UIC. The next hitter up, Andy Leonard, flipped a two-strike pitch out to right field that scored Ryan from second base and pushed the lead to, 4-0.
The Fighting Irish tallied a pair of runs in the bottom of the fourth to slice the deficit in half. Notre Dame tallied three straight hits to open the frame off UIC starter Charlie Weinberg (2-3), the third of which came off the bat of Matt Grosso to score the first run of the game for the Fighting Irish. The next hitter, Petzold grounded into a double play, but the second run of the game scored for the home team. After surrendering another single, Weinberg got Greg Sherry to fly out to Ryan in left field to end the threat.
Weinberg's afternoon was done after 5.0 IP. The sophomore scattered seven hits and allowed just the two fourth-inning runs. He walked one and struck out two; both strikeouts came in his final inning of work.
Matt Salemi relieved Weinberg in the bottom of the sixth. The right-hander faced the minimum, albeit in an unconventional manner. Eric Jagielo led off the inning with a double to right center field and the next hitter, Trey Mancini took a ball out to the warning track, but Ryan camped under it for the second out. Grosso also flied out to left field and Jagielo was thrown out trying to steal third for the final out of the inning.
Chris Hoffman and Eric Wyman worked scoreless seventh and eighth innings, respectively, for UIC.
Sean Fitzgerald was nearly unhittable for Notre Dame out of the bullpen through his first three innings. Ganek muscled a double off the freshman in his first inning of work, the sixth, but aside from that, UIC was not able to do much at the plate. Fitzgerald struck out six hitters in his first three frames on Monday.
The Flames tacked on a huge fifth run in the top of the ninth as they finally appeared to solve Fitzgerald. Ganek led off the inning and reached on error by his counterpart, Notre Dame third baseman Greg Sherry. Following the second sacrifice bunt of the afternoon by Betcher, Serna delivered an RBI single to right field which allowed Ganek to score from second base.
Ganek came in to close out the ballgame. The senior allowed one run on a walk and two hits, but he also fanned two, including Mick Doyle to end the game and earn his third save of the season.
The win was the third straight for the Flames against the Fighting Irish at Frank Eck Stadium; UIC won by an identical score of 10-5 in both 2009 and 2010.
The Flames will return Les Miller Field on Wednesday evening to host the Chicago State Cougars at 7:05 p.m.
