AVE MARIA, Fla. — After nearly pulling off the upset Friday, the Ave Maria Gyrenes defeated the reigning national champions and number one ranked Southeastern Fire in game one of a doubleheader Saturday 6-5. It was just the Fire's second loss of the season. SEU ended up winning the series, taking the rubber match 7-2 in game two of the doubleheader.
Like Friday's game, the Fire scored the first run of the game, taking a 1-0 lead in the top of the first. Fortunately for Ave Maria, the Gyrenes responded very quickly. In the bottom of the first with a runner one, David Leonardi blasted his 11th homer of the season, putting AMU up 2-1.
It was Leonardi's first home run in seven games over the course of twenty days. Also, with 11 blasts on the year, the already career home run leader in Ave Maria history tied the single season record he and Jose Gonzalez set last year.
Over the next three innings, the two squads traded scoring innings, with Southeastern tying the game in the second, Ave Maria getting the lead back in the third, and the Fire taking a 4-3 lead in the fourth.
Southeastern stayed in control until the sixth inning, when the Gyrenes put up a three-spot and scored the eventual winning run. Three back-to-back-to-back singles loaded the bases for Jimmy Coffey who has been on a tear the last few games, batting .500 at 12-for-24 over the past five games leading up to the doubleheader.
Coffey smacked a single himself that scored one run to tie the game and kept the bases loaded for Conner James. After a Southeastern pitching change, James recorded his third multi-RBI game of the season with a single that scored two runs and put the Gyrenes up 6-4.
From there, pitching took over for the Gyrenes to lead them to victory. Starter Kevin Figueredo, who had a good start in the beginning of the game, kicked into high gear around the fifth inning. The junior from Miami, Florida, did not allow a hit from the Fire in the sixth, seventh, and eighth innings. Figueredo was inducing a lot of flyballs from the number one team in the country that his defense was able to bring down and grab for quick easy outs.
The Gyrene hurler worked into the ninth inning, throwing 124 pitches before getting a into a little of trouble with back-to-back walks. Despite being very close to the first nine inning complete game since 2021 for Ave Maria, Figueredo headed into the dugout and Brandon Willoughby came in to finish out the game.
One run did cross in the ninth off a sacrifice fly, but Willoughby struck out the next batter and got the final batter to groundout ending the game and giving the Gyrenes the upset win over the Southeastern Fire.
"It feels really good," said head coach Michael McCormick following the big win for the Gyrenes. "We knew coming into this weekend we were going to have to play really good baseball cause Southeastern's absolutely not going to give it to you and they are a really good club. It was nice to see everything come together for this win today."
The win snapped a 16 game losing streak to the Southeastern Fire for the Gyrenes. Coincidently enough, Southeastern was also ranked number one in the NAIA when AMU last beat them January 30, 2019.
The rubber match of the series was unfortunately all Southeastern as the Fire went on the win the series 2-1. Game two was a bullpen game for the Gyrenes with five bullpen pitchers each seeing a couple innings of action in the game. Ave Maria has the next 10 days off and wanted to get some reps in for guys who haven't been coming out of the bullpen as frequently as others.
Offensively, the Gyrenes went quiet at the plate, only getting one hit through the first eight innings. In the bottom of the ninth, the Gyrenes finally got on the board to avoid the shutout. Tanner Kelly got the inning started with a leadoff walk. The junior from Libertyville, Illinois, was quiet for most of the doubleheader, but was hit by a pitch in the early game and drew a walk in the ninth inning of the second game to keep his record-setting on-base streak alive at all 34 games of the season.
Gonzalez also drew a walk, and then a wild pitch moved both runners into scoring position. Leonardi got the second and final hit of the game for the Gyrenes, smacking a single to right center field, bringing home both Kelly and Gonzalez for the Gyrenes two runs.
With the doubleheader split, the Gyrenes move their record to 25-9 overall, and 9-3 in Sun Conference play. Ave Maria is in sole possession of second place in the Sun Conference, only half a game back of the first place Southeastern Fire and 2.5 games ahead of the third place Keiser Seahawks.
The Gyrenes will take 10 days off now before returning to the field April 11 to play a non-conference doubleheader against the Fort Lauderdale Eagles. The Gyrenes have two such doubleheaders against the Eagles scheduled in April, with the first being April 11 and the second being April 25.
Both games can be streamed on the Sun Digital Network either on the website or on the app available on most cellular devices and smart TVs. Live stats can also be found on avemariagyrenes.com.
