MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. - Royals Baseball earned their first SUN Conference series win of the season on Saturday when they defeated #11 St. Thomas 3-to-2 and taking the series 3 games to 1. The weekend's series marked only the 2nd time this season that #11 St. Thomas lost a series with the other lost series coming against then #3 Taylor University and marked Warner's 5th win over ranked opponents this year.
Jhenzel Figueroa wasted no time getting the Royals on the scoreboard hitting a solo Home Run down the right field line, his 2nd of the season, on the first pitch of his at-bat in the top of the 1st Inning. Both pitching staff's kept the offense limited over the next few Innings before STU was able to score a run in both the 6th and 7th Innings to give the Bobcats a 2-to-1 lead. Down to their last out, the Royals offense came up clutch scoring 2 runs with 2 outs in the 9th Inning to win the game and series.
Danny Garcia drove in the tying run for the Royals when he singled through the middle of the infield to get
Evan Ledoux home. Figueroa followed that up with an RBI single to left field to
Ethan Pues home to score what was the game-winning run.
The Royals pitchers had another great outing against the top ranked Bobcats on Saturday starting with
Evan Christ throwing 5 shutout Innings and only allowed 2 hits while striking out 2 Bobcats in a dominant start by the Sophomore.
Luke Courville earned his 1st win of the season coming in the game out of the bullpen in the 8th Inning and recorded 1.1 Innings pitched without allowing a run.
Austin Vakiener closed out the game for Royals to get his 1st save of the year entering the game in the 9th Inning with 2 runners on base and only 1 out, Vakiener forced the only hitter he faced into grounding into a double-play to secure the Royals 1st Conference series win of the season.
Warner Game Stat Leaders:
HRs: Jhenzel Figueroa (1)
Hits: Jhenzel Figueroa (3)
RBIs: Jhenzel Figueroa (2)
Ks: Evan Christ (2)
Up Next:
The Royals will head to Tampa to take on the defending NCAA D2 National Champion
University of Tampa on Tuesday, March 24th wth first pitch scheduled for
6:00pm.
#GodBlessGoRoyals | #TogetherAsOne
