Romel and Flashes Cruise to 9-2 Win

Saturday, February 22

Fort Myers, Florida

2:00 p.m.

Kent State University

3-3

Florida Gulf Coast University

1-5

Kent State

FGCU

Photo by: David Dermer

2/22/2020 5:51:00 PM | Baseball

Box Score

FORT MYERS, FLORIDA- Collin Romel tossed five scoreless innings and the Flashes used a balanced attack to knock off Florida Gulf Coast 9-2 on Saturday afternoon.

The Flashes scored in four-straight innings to break the game open. Kent State used the deadly combination of timely hitting and costly Gulf Coast throwing errors to jump out to the early lead.

Kent State took advantage of some Gulf Coast miscues all afternoon long, starting in the second inning. After a walk to Patrick Ferguson, a Mack Timbrook grounder and errant throw caused two Eagle defenders to collide and send the ball down the right field line. When the dust settled, Ferguson had scored, and Timbrook reached third. Kevin Dobos brought home Timbrook with a single and later scored on a Grant Vera infield hit. The Flashes racked up three runs on a trio of hits and a costly error to lead 3-0 after two.

The Flashes were after another unearned run in the third, after an error on a Ferguson groundball sent Collin Mathews to third. Kent State put on a squeeze play, but the Eagles played it to perfection, nabbing Mathews at the plate on a bang-bang play. Undeterred, the Flashes got a sacrifice fly from Eric Wentz to plate their fourth run of the game. Shoddy defense in the fourth led to two more Kent State runs as a failed pick-off move scored Justin Kirby and sent Michael Turner to third. Turner would score on a Ferguson base hit to put the Flashes up a half dozen after four. Eric Wentz single handedly made it 7-0 in the fifth. The outfielder doubled, stole third and came home on a wild pitch. Kent State added two more in the seventh on a Ben Carew run-scoring double, the redshirt junior would come into score on a sacrifice fly.

That was more than enough for Collin Romel. The southpaw got out of a two-on, one-out jam in the first and sailed through five innings. He allowed just one hit over the final four innings and struck out six in his second outing of the season. Richie Dell worked out of trouble in both of his innings, working around two walks in the sixth and two singles in the seventh. The Flashes' defense helped out the freshman with a double play to end the sixth. Gulf Coast would score a pair of runs in garbage time, scoring runs in the eighth and the ninth to close out the scoring.

Romel moves to 1-0 on the season with the victory, the Flashes (3-3) are 2-0 in his starts. Kent State will go for the series win in the rubber match on Sunday afternoon. Righty Ryan Lane will go to the mound in the finale, first pitch is set for 1 p.m.