Lehigh University
George Mason
Lehigh prepares to head home after sweep
3/15/2009 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
 |
Berger (0-3) was charged with the loss despite not giving up a single earned run. The junior righty was on the mound for four of the six unearned runs of the day, and left in the sixth trailing 4-3. Berger struck out six batters and walked just two, as the Mountain Hawks fall to 3-14 on the season.
“Berger pitched outstanding for us today,” Lehigh head coach Sean Leary said. “He really threw the ball well. We misplayed a couple balls on a wet cold day and unfortunately our errors came back to hurt us.”
George Mason improves to 11-3 after winning all three games in the weekend series. Dan Gerjets (2-1) earned the win after pitching 6.1 innings and giving up three runs – only one earned.
For the second consecutive game, leadoff hitter Billy Goldman sparked the offense with two hits. Goldman drove in two runs on Saturday and added another RBI in Sunday’s game. Kevin Mihalik and Billy Swenson each registered two hits as well, and each scored a run in the loss.
"He’s definitely picked it up lately," Leary said of Goldman. "He's becoming a guy we can count on at the top of the lineup."
Brendan Pifer put Lehigh on the board first in the second inning when he flew out to right, scoring Mihalik from third on the sacrifice fly. George Mason answered with two unearned runs in the third inning off Berger. An error by Geoff Campbell and a wild pitch enabled Scott Krieger and Justin Bour to drive in runs with singles to give the Patriots a 2-1 lead.
Another fielding error by the Mountain Hawks in the fourth – they made three on the day – allowed two more runs to score and extend the George Mason lead to three runs.
The Mountain Hawks scored two unearned runs of their own in the fifth to pull back within one. Goldman notched his fourth RBI of the weekend as Lehigh benefitted from a error by Bour at first base.
George Mason put the game away in the eighth inning by scoring four unanswered runs. Rob Russell gave up all four runs, but only two of them were earned after the Brown and White’s third error of the day. Luke Porter replaced Russell with one down in the inning and helped Lehigh escape further damage by recording the final two outs.
Lehigh returns home for the first time this season on Tuesday, when the Mountain Hawks host the
"We’ve still yet to practice on our own field," Leary said. "We’re anxious to get on our field and play a game. We put this early schedule together to get us ready for the northern part of our schedule, so it will be interesting to see how we do."
