April 30, 2008
NOTRE DAME, Ind. – The freshman duo of Ryan Sharpley (Marshall, Mich.) and Evan Danieli (East Hanover, N.J.) combined to hold Mississippi Valley State without a hit until two outs in the seventh inning as Notre Dame routed the Delta Devils, 13-2, in college baseball action from Frank Eck Stadium Wednesday night. With the victory, Notre Dame improves to 30-12-1, while Mississippi Valley State drops to 15-22.
Junior Casey Martin (Chesterton, Ind.), sophomore David Mills (Battle Creek, Mich.) and freshman Matt Scioscia (Westlake Village, Calif.) provided all the offense the Irish would need. Martin went 2-for-3 with a two-run single and solo home run. The blast was Martin’s third of the season. Mills went 3-for-3 with three runs scored, two RBI and his team leading fifth triple of the year. Scioscia not only recorded his first career hit in an Irish uniform, but it sailed out of the ball park for a three-run home run.
Senior Ross Brezovsky’s (Naples, Fla.) 22-game hitting streak ended with a 0-for-4 night at the plate. Sophomore Billy Boockford (Glen Ellyn, Ill.) went 2-for-3 with a run scored.
Sharpley, who improved to 4-1 on the season, would leave the game after four innings. The right-handed hurler tossed 4.0 hitless and scoreless innings. Sharpley struckout five and walked one. He is 4-0 with a 1.71 earned run average over his last five starts. Sharpley has fanned 19, walked 11 and yielded just eight hits in those 21.0 innings of work.
Danieli tossed the next 3.0 innings and allowed just a pair of unearned runs. He would have gotten through the seventh inning with the no-hitter intact, but a two-out error kept the inning alive for Paul Olson who broke up the no-no with a clean single back through the box. The Delta Devils would go on to add a pair of meaningless runs.
Junior Brett Graffy and junior Kyle Weiland each tossed a scoreless inning of relief.
Notre Dame returns to action this weekend with a critical three-game BIG EAST series at Connecticut. First-pitch for Friday afternoon’s series opener is scheduled for 3:00 p.m. Both Saturday and Sunday’s games will start at noon. All three games can be heard live on ESPN Radio 1490 AM and UND.com.
–ND–