Sports | 4/17/08

Media Credit: Patrick Smith Towson third baseman Steve Yarsinsky fields a grounder against Delaware State during the eighth inning at John B. Schuerholz Park Tuesday afternoon. The Tigers won the non-conference game, 9-1. [Click to enlarge]

Ending their nine-game home stand on a positive note, the Tigers (19-17) crushed the Hornets of Delaware State (11-21) in a 9-1 non-conference victory on Tuesday. Towson has won 11 out of their last 14 games, including seven out of their nine at home. The team has gone 15-3 at home overall.

"I think most teams just play better at home," Colonial Athletic Association player of the week Brian Conley said. "We hit the ball around and we had some good pitching. It was a good game."

Several freshmen contributed to the Tigers' success on Tuesday, including right-handers Drew Permison and Charlie Cononie. The two pitchers combined to allow only nine hits and one run over the course of the game.

Permison is now 5-0 for the season after pitching four shutout innings, allowing just three hits and no walks. He added five strikeouts to his record.

A series of base hits in the first two innings by Conley, Greg Furmanek, Eric Weller, Steve Rice, Nick Natoli and Terry Gallo allowed Towson to take a 3-0 lead heading into the third.

Freshman Chris Wychock knocked out his fourth home run of the season in the bottom of the third off of a 0-2 count to increase the lead to 4-0.

"I was behind in the count. He threw me a curveball, because I was up in the zone, and I just hit it," Wychock said. "It felt good."

A triple by Furmanek and an RBI single by Steve Yarsinsky allowed the Tigers to increase their lead to five runs in the fifth.

A two-run home run by Gallo in the sixth, an RBI base hit by Rice and sacrifice fly by Natoli ended the scoring and left the Tigers' lead at nine runs.

The Hornets wouldn't go down without a fight, as a sacrifice fly by third baseman Jose Portela allowed first baseman James Friel to score in the eighth to avoid the shutout. However, they were unable to make their run deficit any smaller throughout the remainder of the game.

The Tigers will travel to Northeastern this weekend for a three-game CAA series.

"Hopefully we can have some success up there and play some good baseball," Conley said. "I don't know much about Northeastern, but I heard they had a pretty good series against [UNC] Wilmington this weekend. I think we can take at least two, hopefully, but we'll see what happens."

Wychock expressed optimism about the upcoming series against the Huskies.

"We've been winning a lot of games," he said. "After winning all those games, I just think it'll carry right on when we go on the road. I think we'll be fine."

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