Cardinals Take First Two From Rangers

WASHINGTON, D.C. (March 19, 2011) - The Rangers had their three-game winning streak come to an end this afternoon as they dropped the first two games of a three-game set to Catholic (9-5, 2-0 Landmark). The Cardinals won game one's pitching duel 3-2 and had four pitchers combine for a 8-0, one-hit shutout in the nightcap.

Game 1 - Box Score    
Drew starting pitcher Tom Koontz (Allentown, N.J./Allentown) turned in another quality start for the Rangers, going all six innings and allowing three runs with none of them earned. His counterpart Ron Esposito also went six innings while scattering nine hits and allowing only one run.

Catholic would get on the scoreboard first when leadoff man Matt Grieb was issued a walk and later came around with the help of a throwing error on a stolen base attempt. Catholic would build their lead to 3-0 in the bottom of the third on a RBI ground out and a sacrifice fly that scored Grieb who reached on his second walk of the game.

The Rangers would push their first run of the afternoon across in the top of the fifth when Tom Murray (Brick, N.J./Brick Memorial) delivered a two-out single that scored Matt Kaplon (Palisades Park, N.J./Palisades Park). Drew would put together another rally in their final turn at the plate. Coury Napier (Chester, Conn./Valley Regional) singled to lead off the inning and advanced to second on a Chris Delmaestro (Hillsborough, N.J./Hillsborough) walk. With two outs and the tying run on first, Murray again singled to score Napier and put the tying run on second base. The Rangers rally was ended when Marc Hanna induced a ground ball back to himself to end the game.

The Rangers left nine runners on base and had six more hits than the Cardinals in the game.

Game 2 -Box Score
The Cardinals continued the good pitching effort in the second game of the twinbill. Despite Cardinal pitchers issuing six walks over seven innings of work, they silenced the Rangers bats by only allowing one hit. Starting pitcher Andrew Carroll went four innings for the win and struck out four batters in the process. The Cardinal bullpen came on and threw three innings of scoreless and hitless ball to seal the victory.

Drew starting pitcher Evan Martens (Avon, Conn./Avon) went 3.1 innings and was on the hook for three of the five runs scored by the Cardinals in the fourth inning. The senior struck out two batters, eclipsing 100 strikeouts for his career. He is the 10th pitcher in Drew baseball history to surpass the 100 strikeout mark.

The Rangers will be back on the field tomorrow and try to avoid a sweep as they take on the Cardinals at 11:00 AM.