AUBURNDALE, Fla. — The Ave Maria Gyrenes closed out the RussMatt Central Florida Invitational with a win over the Mount Vernon Nazarene Cougars Saturday, March 4, 6-3. With the win, the Gyrenes finish their spring break trip 3-1.
Just like in their previous two wins this trip, the Gyrenes scored first, bringing home a couple of runs in the first inning. With two on and only one out, Tynan Shahidi smacked a single to left field and then advanced to second on a error committed by the Cougar left fielder. That also allowed Tanner Kelly to score from second and David Leonardi to advance to third. Kelly singled to get on base bringing his on-base streak up to 21 games. That ties Kelly for the third longest on-base streak in AMU history, along with four other players, most recently being Aiden Hickey in 2021.
During the next plate appearance, a wild pitch brought home Leonardi to give the Gyrenes a 2-0 lead.
The Gyrenes were kept quiet for the next few innings while the Cougars got a run in the bottom of the third to pull within one run.
In the fifth inning, Ave Maria struck again, this time putting up three runs to take a 5-1 lead. Gonzalez and Leonardi each drew walks and then Shahidi singled to load the bases with only one out. Connor James popped up a sacrifice fly in the infield to score Gonzalez and move Leonardi to third. After Shahidi advanced to second on a wild pitch, Daniel Caylor got his second hit of the game with a two-RBI single that scored Leonardi and Shahidi.
In the bottom of the sixth, Mount Vernon Nazarene scored their final two runs of the game off a two-run homer. That's when Ryan Schroeder exited the game, but the junior from Jacksonville, Florida, tossed a very good game in his fifth start of the season. The three runs surrendered to the Cougars came off four hits in the 5.1 innings thrown by Schroeder, who also struck out five batters in that time. Schroeder received the win as the pitcher of record, bringing his season record to 2-1.
Matt Barragy entered the game and pitched the final 3.2 innings, only surrendering one hit during that time span. Barragy also struck out six batters during his time on the mound, which is not only a season high for Barragy, it is a career high as well, passing his five strikeout game against Fort Lauderdale last season. For pitching more than three innings as a relief pitcher and entering when the Gyrenes only had a two-run lead, Barragy earned his first save of the season and only the fourth of year for AMU.
In the ninth inning, the Gyrenes added one more run for good measure. With two outs and Kelly standing on third, Shahidi got his second RBI of the game with another single to left field, giving the final score of 6-3. It was Shahidi's 26th RBI on the year, which leads the team just about halfway through the season.
Following the win, Ave Maria improves to 16-5. The Gyrenes have two more doubleheaders against non-conference opponents at home before starting the gauntlet that is the Sun Conference schedule. The first of those doubleheaders is Wednesday, March 8, against the Dordt Crusaders. The second is against the Purdue-Northwest Pride Sunday, March 12. All four games will be streamed on the Sun Digital Network and live stats can be found on the Ave Maria Gyrenes website.
