FORT MYERS, Fla. — The Ave Maria Gyrenes dropped their first game in the SUN Conference Tournament Thursday afternoon, losing to the number one seeded Southeastern Fire 6-4. Like a couple of their games against the Fire in the regular season, the Gyrenes put up a good fight but fell in the final few innings to the best team in the country.
Heading into the sixth inning, the Gyrenes had yet to get a hit in the first game of the tournament and found themselves down 4-0. Ave Maria needed a jolt to get back in the game, and they found it, unsurprisingly, at the top of the order in Francesco Barbieri. The fifth-year senior from Canada wrapped a ball around the right field foul pole for a solo home run to put the Gyrenes on the board. In most parks, the ball would have twisted foul, but in JetBlue park, an exact replica of Fenway Park up in Boston, Massachusetts, and the host of this year's tournament, it is a homer. That puts Barbieri at 17 dingers on the year, three more than the previous single-season record in program history. It was also the 60th of the year for the Gyrenes as a whole.
The solo shot pumped up the Gyrenes, who continued to score following the leadoff home run. After Luis Rodriguez-Gallo got on board with a double to center field, his courtesy runner, Cole Rasbury, scored on a balk from the Southeastern starter, Darien Smith, a couple of at-bats later.
The final two runs of the inning came off the bat of Davis Blair who slapped a two-RBI single to center field, bringing home David Leonardi and Michael Kelly. That tied the game at four and got the Gyrene fans around the ballpark buzzing.
However, that would be the only frame AMU crossed home plate. The Gyrenes were held scoreless in the final three innings while Southeastern scored in the seventh to take the lead and added some insurance in the eighth.
Blake Albritton threw a clean fifth and sixth innings after relieving starter Kevin Figueredo, but a double from the leadoff batter in the seventh put the runner on who scored the winning run, giving Albritton the loss and dropping his record to 6-5.
The Gyrenes fall to 21-25 on the year and are 0-1 in the double elimination conference tournament. Ave Maria is back in action Friday morning as they open day two of the postseason in an elimination game with the Warner Royals. Warner lost their first game to the Webber Warriors 7-2 on Thursday, setting up the five and six seeds in the tournament for a loser-goes-home game. The Gyrenes won the regular season series against the Royals three games to one last week to secure their spot in the tournament over Florida Memorial. Ave Maria will look to have the same kind of success against the Royals Friday so that they can stay at least one more day at Fenway South. First pitch is set for 11 a.m. and the game can be streamed on the Sun Digital Network.
