Despite holding a 3-2 lead through five innings, the Hofstra baseball team was routed by 15th-ranked Saint John’s University in Queens on Sunday afternoon, 14-3. Steven Foster was 3-for-3 at the plate, doubling and scoring a run in the loss. Jorge Marrero started the game for the Pride, throwing 4.1 innings of two-run baseball. Marrero did get into trouble in the fifth inning, giving up a single and two walks to load the bases with one out. John Rooney came on in relief and got the final two outs of the fifth, preserving Hofstra’s 3-2 lead at the time.
The next inning, Rooney gave up seven runs on six consecutive singles and was only to record one out before John Ryan was brought in to close the inning. By the time the last out of the sixth inning was recorded, St. John’s had scored nine runs and turned a one-run deficit into an eight-run lead, 11-3.
The Pride was unable to recover from the sixth inning thrashing, giving up three more runs in the seventh inning and only managing one hit for the remainder of the game.
Saint John’s finished with 19 hits on the day, while the Pride mustered just six hits and left six men on base. With five batters collecting multiple hits and their pitching staff being lights out, the Red Storm had no problem holding onto the lead once they had it.
Aside from Foster’s big day, Nick Bottari, Sean Rausch and Chris Hardardt each had hits for Hofstra.
Rausch and Hardardt each had singles in the fifth inning and came around to score on a wild pitch and a throwing error by St. John’s. Bottari had Hofstra’s final RBI in the fifth when he lined a single to score Foster.
Rooney (1-6) was tagged with the loss for the Pride and Red Storm reliever Michael LoPresti (5-0) earned the win, throwing four shutout innings.
Hofstra falls to 7-18 overall with the loss while St. John’s improves to 21-2 and moves up to 14th-ranked in the country.
Hofstra’s next game will be Tuesday night when they play Monmouth University away at 3 p.m.