JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — The Ave Maria Gyrenes swept their third opponent of the season with a doubleheader win over the Trinity Baptist Eagles Friday. AMU won game one 14-1 and game two 8-0. A third game was scheduled for Saturday but was cancelled due to rain in the Jacksonville area.
The bats started off hot for the Gyrenes in game one with Ave Maria plating runs in the first four innings. Tanner Kelly got the scoring started for the Gyrenes with an RBI double that scored Daniel Caylor. A couple batters later, Jose Gonzalez crushed a ball over the left field wall, bringing home Kelly and himself and giving Ave Maria a 3-0 lead.
AMU tacked on a fourth run in the second inning off a Caylor RBI double that scored Eric Havner.
The third inning was the Gyrenes best inning offensively in game one seeing Ave Maria bringing home four runs. With two runners on and nobody out, Tynan Shahidi hit a soft grounder into the infield and reached on a fielder's choice. The Eagle defense tried to throw out Gonzalez at third, but an error erased the out and allowed him to come home to score. Francesco Barbieri who was on first during Shahidi's at bat made it all the way to third.
The next batter, Cole Rasbury, then slapped an RBI single that scored Barbieri and moved Shahidi to second. After a double steal, a sacrifice fly from Jimmy Coffey scored Shahidi and moved Rasbury to third. Rasbury scored the final run of the inning by rushing home following a wild pitch from the Eagles' pitcher.
Ave Maria kept their scoring streak alive in the fourth inning and scored three runs to make it 11-0. With David Leonardi on third and Gonzalez on first with only one out, Trinity Baptist's pitcher tried to clean up the base paths with a pickoff attempt, but their first baseman had trouble collecting the ball. Leonardi came in to score and Gonzalez made it all the way to third base.
After two walks to load the bases, Axel Melendez got his second and third RBIs of the season with a double that scored Gonzalez and Rasbury.
In the bottom halves of these innings, starter Cameron Horner was lights out on the mound. Horner pitched a shutout through the first four innings and only allowed two hits and one walk while striking out five, earning his third win of the season. Horner's stat line also produced the game the highest game score of any starter this season for Ave Maria, a stat developed by Bill James to compare starts in one easy to understand number, thus making Horner's performance the best start of 2023 so far for Ave Maria.
Chris Cuppini took over for Horner in the fifth and kept the shutout going through the fifth and sixth innings while striking out two batters.
At the plate, the Gyrenes scoring streak came to an end in the fifth inning, going 1-2-3. They got back on the board and the final two innings however and kept piling on the runs. In the sixth, two runs were scored off a Coffey RBI double and a Melendez sacrifice fly. In the seventh inning, Havner hit a one out triple and then scored off a wild pitch giving Ave Maria their 14th and final run of the game.
The Eagles scored their lone run in the bottom of the seventh making the final score 14-1.
In game two, the scoring wasn't as frequent for the Gyrenes and the hits didn't come like they did in the previous contest, but Ave Maria capitalized on five errors from the Eagles and won 8-0.
Ave Maria brought home their first run in the opening frame, with Daniel Caylor getting on base from an error on the pitcher, working his way around the base paths, and coming home off a wild pitch.
In the third inning, the Gyrenes struck again, also with a runner who got on base due to a fielding error. Tanner Kelly reached on an error by the third baseman, made his way to third on a ground out, and then came into score off a Francesco Barbieri RBI single. Both runs to start the game for AMU were unearned.
In the fourth inning, the Gyrenes scored their third run and second off a wild pitch, with Caylor being the one to cross the plate. This was the first run that counted as an earned run for the Eagles with Caylor drawing a walk to get on board.
In the bottom of the fourth, Justin David came into pitch for Ryan Schroeder. Like his counterpart in game one, Schroeder did not allow any runs to score and only gave up two hits and one walk. Unlike Horner in the first game, Schroeder only went three innings and thus was not counted as the pitcher of record for the game. David entered in the fourth and tossed two shutout innings, struck out four batters, and earned his first win of the season.
Christian Horner, brother to game one starter Cameron Horner, pitched a 1-2-3 sixth inning.
The score stayed put until the seventh and final inning of the game when the Gyrenes scored five runs off one hit and three errors. Shahidi got things started with a leadoff triple and was brought home by the next batter, Cole Rasbury, who hit a sacrifice fly to center field.
Later in the inning, Axel Melendez got on base after a passed ball on swinging third strike. A second passed ball moved him to second, and yet another passed ball on a swinging third strike moved him to third and allowed Caylor to reach first base safely. Both of them were brought home during the next at bat when Kelly hit a hard ball that was muffed by the Eagles left fielder, putting Kelly on second base and the Gyrenes on top 6-0. A wild pitch and passed ball then scored Kelly during the next at bat making it 7-0. The nightmare continued for the Eagles when the Gyrenes loaded up the bases and then the fifth and final passed ball for Trinity Baptist allowed David Leonardi to score to give the final score of 8-0.
Brandon Willoughby closed things up for the Gyrenes on the mound in the bottom of the seventh not allowing any runs and striking out two batters.
With the two wins, the Gyrenes are now 8-3 on the season and evened up their road record to 3-3. Ave Maria is back in action Tuesday, February 14, when they will play a midweek game against the RV Warner Royals. Even though this game features two SUN Conference teams, it will not count as a conference game for the standings. It will be a good litmus test for the Gyrenes to see how they will stack up against some of their tougher in conference competition they will play later in the season. That game will be broadcasted on the SUN Digital Network and live stats can be found at avemariagyrenes.com.
