Bears Conclude Trip with Loss to Richard Stockton

MYRTLE BEACH, SC – The St. Joseph's baseball team wrapped up their trip to Myrtle Beach, SC with a loss to Richard Stockton, 8-2. The Bears finished 0-4 on the trip. They ran into some great pitching and the offense was unable to get the bats going after the first game.

Junior Mykelle Cortez (Brooklyn, NY/Cobble Hill) started for the Bears and pitched well, keeping the team in the game. Cortez let up a run in the second after a lead-off double came around to score. Cortez then danced his way into and out of trouble. In the fifth, he got Dan McGuckin to ground into a 6-4-3 double-play to end the inning and the Ospreys' threat with the score still 1-0.

St. Joseph's finally got on the board in the top of the 6th. Freshman Frank Petrizzo (Staten Island, NY/Monsignor Farrell) led off with a walk and moved over to second on a balk by starter Adam Warburton. Freshman Chris Pacifico (Brooklyn, NY/St. Edmund's) moved him over to third with a base hit and junior Kevin Diaz (Staten Island, NY/Monsignor Farrell) drove him home with a two-out single to knot the game at 1-1. Diaz was 3-for-4 on the day, accounting for half the Bears' hits.

The tie didn't last long, as the Osprey's finally got to Cortez and scored four in the bottom half of the inning. Stockton strung together five straight hits, the biggest a two-out, RBI double by Mike Bush just over the outstretched glove of left fielder Petrizzo to put the Ospreys up three. Bush later came around to score and the inning ended with Stockton up, 5-1.

Cortez pitched six innings allowing five runs (three earned) and striking out three. "It was a close game. Things got away from us a little at the end. There are a lot of positives to take from the game that we can use in the future," said Cortez.

The Ospreys added three more in the bottom of the 7th to extend the lead to 8-1. Danny Zaretsky (Brooklyn, NY/Lincoln) got his second RBI in as many games with his single in the 9th to drive home Jon Mendez (Brooklyn, NY/Xaverian).

Warburton let up just the one run in seven innings of work. The Bears could only scratch three hits off him and struck out seven times. Ten players tallied 11 hits for the Ospreys. Joe Farrell went 2-for-2 with two RBI.

St. Joseph's is idle for the next three weeks before resuming their schedule up north. Their next game is a doubleheader Sunday, March 13th at Maritime with the first game starting at 11:00 am.