The red-hot FGCU Baseball team opened a three-game home series with a win against Evansville with 10-0. Mario Leon was on the mound and picked up the win.
“We got a good performance out of Mario, who wasn’t feeling his best but gave everything he had tonight,” said head coach Dace Tollett. “It was our first shutout of the year so as the pitching coach and as the head coach I’m very happy. We got some big hits and put the game away early on a big night for [Richie] Garcia and [Eric] Gonzalez. This club can really swing the bat.”
On the first pitch of the game, Marc Coffers doubled on the first pitch of the bottom of the first and came around to score after Gage Mopey bunted him home and scored on Kohl Gilmore’s 21^st RBI of the season.
An inning later, Eric Gonzalez hit an opposite field home run for his third of the season in just eight at-bats and would give the Eagles a 3-0 lead in front of his family.
“My mom got pretty emotional, Gonzalez said. “She has not seen one of those in a while. It felt really good.”
They would break the game open in the fourth with a six spot.
Richie Garcia drove in the third and fourth run with an RBI double and would come around to home on an infield single from Eli Lovell that scored two more runs to give FGCU a 9-0 advantage.
Leon’s most difficult inning came in the fifth but was able to work around a second and third situation with one out and worked his way out of the inning without giving up a run.
FGCU added one more in the ninth as Sebastian Gruszecki recorded the final nine outs as the Eagles earned their 11^th win of the season.
Game two of the series will be on Saturday at 12 P.M. with Josh Dye on the mound as FGCU looks for the series win.