The Seton Hall baseball team extended its winning streak to five games on Wednesday afternoon with an 8-1 win over Fairleigh Dickinson. The win puts the Pirates at 8-12 on the season, and they have outscored opponents 49-15 on the streak.
Freshman Cole Patten picked up his first win as a Pirate in the victory. Patten threw a stellar six scoreless innings and struck out eight. In the six innings, Patten also only gave up two hits and surrendered no runs.
Seton Hall opened the scoring in the top of the third with a Steve Grober RBI to drive in Chris Villa. It was the continuation of an impressive run for Grober, who has been one of Seton Hall’s key cogs from the batter’s box as a freshman.
Cole Patten fired six scoreless innings in Seton Hall’s 8-1 win over Fairleigh Dickinson on Wednesday. Photo via SHU Athletics
Patten was able to keep Fairleigh Dickinson at bay for the next two innings before the Pirates struck on the scoreboard again. Once again, too, it was Grober driving in Villa to give Seton Hall a 2-0 lead in the top of the fifth.
The scoring continued in the top of the sixth, as Matt Toke made it a 3-0 lead for the Pirates. Patten finished out work in the sixth inning to secure his impressive statline and give Seton Hall plenty of confidence to work with.
The Seton Hall offense did its fair share to make sure Patten came home with the win as well. In the seventh inning, the Pirates exploded for five runs to put the game away.
The run started with a triple by Sebastiano Santorelli who drove in two with a triple. Then, Christian Del Castillo continued his dominant campaign with a double to bring home Santorelli and make it 6-0.
To officially blow the game open, Casey Dana hit a two-run homerun, and from there, it was smooth sailing for Seton Hall.
For the seventh inning, Tyler Burnham came in relief for Patten. He, Blake Espinal, and Corey Sawyer finished the game by giving up a combined one hit and one run and striking out three batters.
Sawyer gave up the run in his appearance, but it was too little damage and too late by Fairleigh Dickinson to even make a difference.
The dominant performance by the Pirates lead them to a three-game series with Iona beginning on March 29. If the Pirates can come out of the series with a positive record, they line up for a rematch with Fairleigh Dickinson on April 2 with the chance to be at .500 or just below it heading into Big East play.
Kevin Kopf can be reached at kevin.kopf@student.shu.edu or on Twitter @KMKTNF.
