Box Score TROY, Ala. (May 3, 2013) – The FIU Panther baseball team (23-22, 11-11) dropped a tough 11-5 loss to the Troy Trojans on Friday night at Riddle-Pace Field. Despite trailing only 6-5 heading into the seventh, Troy plated a five-spot in the bottom half of the inning to earn the win.

Sophomore Oscar Aguirre homered and drove in three RBI for the Panthers in the loss. Senior Nathan Burns collected two hits while sophomore Julius Gaines and freshman Edwin Rios each drove in a run.

The Trojans got things started in the second inning with a four-spot, thanks to a three-run homerun from Garrett Pitts. Later in the inning, a sacrifice fly from Tyler Vaughn scored Brandon Brown to give the Trojans a 4-0 advantage.

The Panthers answered in the third inning with two runs. Junior Tyler Hibbert led off with a double to turn it over to the top of the lineup, where sophomore Gaines drove him in with a single to centerfield. Sophomore Aramis Garcia drove Gaines in later in the inning with an RBI groundout to trim the Trojan lead to 4-2. Troy came back in the bottom half to plate another run to extend its lead to 5-2.

In the fourth inning, Aguirre blasted his third homer of the season over the high rightfield fence. Senior T.J. Shantz also scored on the long ball, cutting Troy's lead to 5-4. The Trojans however loaded the bases with nobody out in the bottom of the fourth, managing to squeak out a run to make it 6-4.

Following a scoreless fifth, FIU added one in the sixth to shrink the Trojan lead to one. Burns started things with a leadoff walk and Shantz drove him in on an RBI double to make the score 6-5 in favor of Troy.

Troy built a comfortable lead in the seventh, as the Trojans strung together four base hits to score five additional runs.

FIU and Troy will be back in action tomorrow with a 4 p.m. ET start. Saturday's contest will be televised live by the Sun Belt Network; the game can be found on CSS or Cox Sports Television.

######

About FIU Athletics: FIU Athletics is home to more than 400 student-athletes in 18 different sports, and is a proud member of the Sun Belt Conference and an affiliate member of Conference USA (men's soccer). Athletic events are played in seven different venues on FIU's campuses (Modesto A. Maidique and Biscayne Bay), including U.S. Century Bank Arena and Alfonso Field at FIU Stadium.

About FIU: Florida International University is recognized as a Carnegie engaged university. Its colleges and schools offer more than 180 bachelor's, master's and doctoral programs in fields such as engineering, international relations, architecture, law and medicine. As one of South Florida's anchor institutions, FIU is worlds ahead in its local and global engagement, finding solutions to the most challenging problems of our time. FIU emphasizes research as a major component of its mission and enrolls nearly 48,000 students in two campuses and three centers including FIU Downtown on Brickell and the Miami Beach Urban Studios. More than 140,000 alumni live and work in South Florida. FIU is a member of the Sun Belt Conference and has 400 student-athletes participating in 18 sports. For more information about FIU, visit http://www.fiu.edu