Tritons Take Series Opener From Barry, 6-2

Box Score ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - The trend of strong pitching and timely hitting continued on Friday for the Eckerd baseball team as the Tritons opened a weekend series with a 6-2 win over Barry University.

The win for Eckerd (11-13, 3-4 SSC) was its eighth in its last 10 games.

Tonight's opener started out as a pitchers' duel between EC's Dillon McCollough and Barry's Jonathan Hernandez.  After each pitcher held the opposition scoreless in the first three innings, it was McCollough who blinked first allowing a solo home run to Khalil Denson to lead off the top of the fourth.

Hernandez, meanwhile, gave Eckerd fits in the early innings striking out seven through the first four frames.

However, EC finally got to him in the fifth.

After Garrett Hiott was hit by a pitch with two strikes to lead off the inning, the Tritons strung together four straight hits including RBI singles by Nick Conti and Mitch Calandra.  Chase Achuff added a sacrifice fly, giving Eckerd a 3-1 lead before Hernandez (1-4) finally got out of the inning.

Barry trimmed the deficit in half with a run in the sixth and placed runners on the corners with two outs after a walk and a bloop single, but McCollough got Andrew Raposa to ground out stranding both the tying and go-ahead runs on base.

The Tritons answered in the bottom of the inning.  Hiott drew a one-out walk and Sam Cochrane followed with a single to advance Hiott to third.  Head coach Josh Beauregard then took a risk that paid dividends as Cochrane took off for second and drew the Bucs' attention away from Hiott.

Hiott took advantage by breaking for home, beating the throw while Cochrane swiped second.

Calandra later delivered with a two-out RBI single to make it a 5-2 Triton lead.

Joey Favetta took over for McCollough in the seventh and was nearly untouchable.  The sophomore fanned seven batters in three innings while allowing only one hit, putting a damper on Barry's hopes of a comeback.

Calandra added a third run-scoring single in the eighth.

McCollough (2-2) picked up the win while Favetta earned his second save of the year.  Calandra had a big day at the plate, going 4-for-5 with three RBIs while Cochrane went 3-for-5.

The two teams meet again on Saturday in a doubleheader beginning at 12:00 PM.