Baseball Powers Past Catholic

WINCHESTER, Va. - The onslaught continues.

Shenandoah University ran its non-conference baseball winning streak to 15 games Wednesday afternoon with a 32-11 win over Catholic, and set a number of new school records in the process.

SU (19-4) broke the school mark for RBI with 29 against the Cardinals (8-10) while tying marks for runs, at-bats and total bases.

The 27 hits missed the school record by one. That mark was set 12 days ago in a 32-5 victory over Franklin & Marshall.

Wednesday's contest was effectively over by the end of the first inning - the first three Hornets batters reached base safely and then cleanup hitter Greg Van Sickler drove them all in with a grand slam home run.

Three batters later, Jasen Eberz hit the first of his two HR on the day with a three-run home run to centerfield.

Shenandoah sent 11 men to the plate in that seven-run first and it was one of three innings in which the team sent at least nine men to the plate.

All nine starters got hit safely in the contest and scored at least two runs.

Van Sickler, with six RBI and Eberz, with five, did most of the damage. In addition to his two dingers, Eberz needed just a triple to complete hitting for the cycle.

Freshman Eric Rabung (5-0) benefited from the offensive explosion as he earned the victory with 6.2 innings of action. Rabung struck out eight before leaving midway through the seventh.

CUA used eight different pitchers and starter Ronnie Esposito was tagged with the loss. Esposito falls to 2-3 on the spring after allowing seven runs (five earned) on four hits and two walks in 1/3 of an inning.

With 17 regular season games left in its season, Shenandoah is now one win from last season's total and has already surpassed the 2008 total of 270 runs scored.

Today's game is the 12th time that the Hornets have scored at least 10 runs and the 15th time that the squad has registered 10 or more hits.

Box Score

SU hosts Randolph-Macon on Thursday afternoon at 3:00 in another non-league contest.