MIAMI (April 13, 2019) – The FIU baseball team slugged its way to back-to-back conference series wins on Saturday by outpacing No. 30 Southern Miss with a score of 16-6.
FIU's 16 runs are the most scored by the Panthers all season and the most since March 11, 2018 against George Mason, which was also 16.
The Panthers improve to 15-19 overall and 5-8 in Conference USA play and are currently riding a four-game winning streak. Southern Miss drops to 20-12 (10-4) on the season.
Junior
Nick MacDonald had his best outing of the season, after tossing seven innings of two run ball and striking out nine Golden Eagle batters for the win. Stevie Powers was handed the loss.
The story of the night was the 16 runs scored by Panther batters, led by the dynamic duo of
Austin Shenton and
Adan Fernandez. Shenton went four-for-six with three runs scored and padded his team RBI lead with a pair. Fernandez matched Shenton and added four hits of his own with two RBIs and two runs scored.
Jose Garcia and
Juan Teixeira each added three more hits. Garcia had a game-high four RBIs, while Teixeira platted one.
Derek Cartaya and
Luis Chavez each drove in three runs as well.
The FIU runs came early and often on Saturday night. Cartaya and Shenton started the game with back-to-back singles before scoring on a Fernandez triple. Garcia blew the game wide open with a moon shot to left center for his sixth home run of the season and a 4-0 Panther lead. FIU added another run in the second frame when Teixeira scored on a Cartaya SAC fly.
Southern Miss got on the board with a pair in the third before FIU exploded for five more runs in the fifth. Garcia singled home
Javier Valdes and Shenton to make it 7-2, before a Teixeira base knock brought home Fernandez and a Cartaya base hit platted Teixeira and Garcia to push the lead to 10-2.
FIU scored one in the seventh and five more in the eighth, highlighted by a three-run dinger off the bat of
Luis Chavez for his first career home run to make it a 16-3 game.
The Golden Eagles scored one in the eighth and three in the ninth, but that proved to be too little too late.
UP NEXT
With the series already in hand, FIU will go for the home sweep tomorrow at 12 p.m. inside the FIU Baseball Stadium.
SOCIAL MEDIA
Get all the latest information on the team by following @FIUBaseball on Facebook and @FIUBaseball on Twitter and Instagram. General athletic news can also be found at @FIUSports on Facebook and @FIUAthletics on Twitter and Instagram.
