It was another wild one as Dolphins beat Ospreys to win River City Rumble baseball series
Jacksonville University hosted the University of North Florida in a three-game ASUN baseball series that started with a blowout victory for the Dolphins and ended with a split of two wild, crazy and wonderfully flawed games that gave JU a 2-1 margin in the three-game set.
Pretty it wasn’t. But it was entertaining all the way.
JU (18-20, 12-6) maintained a share of the lead in the ASUN with Stetson and Kennesaw with a 9-6 victory on Sunday at Sessions Stadium bouncing back from a 9-8 11-inning loss to the Ospreys (18-19, 8-10) on Saturday in which UNF threw out one Dolphins runner at the plate in the eighth inning and then erased two on rundowns, coming on the same play, in the bottom of the 11th inning.
Dolphins sophomore Clayton Hodges, who made two crucial baserunning errors that led to the bizarre double play on Saturday, bounced back to go 2 for 3 with a two-run single, a sacrifice bunt that led to a run and a stolen base.
Tyrell Brewer and Abedriel Delgado hit their first home runs of the season and the only homers of the series and Brewer was 3 for 4.
Weekend games both came down to final out
“We shot ourselves in the foot a few times [on Saturday] and didn’t make it easy on ourselves,” said Hodges, an Episcopal graduate. “It was easy to go home, shower, get a good night’s rest and come back out here. It was a new day and we went out to grind out a series win.”
JU led 9-5 going to the top of the ninth but in another example of how wacky the weekend went, relief pitcher Scout Updike hit three UNF batters with one out (glancing blows off arms, elbows and hands) and walked another to force in a run.
JU coach Chris Hayes brought in Fleming Island graduate Divine Valle, who got the final two outs to end the game.
Dolphins starter Blake Barquin scattered seven hits over six innings and left with a 6-3 lead. UNF cut it to two runs twice, on Jakob Runnells’ RBI single in the seventh and a run-scoring double in the eighth by St. Johns Country Day graduate Finn Howell off winner Logan Jones (3-0).
The Dolphins gave themselves some cushion in the bottom of the eighth when Brewer singled home Will Gale, who led the inning off with a double and moved to third on Hodges’ sacrifice bunt; followed by Blake Edmonds’ sacrifice fly.
JU, UNF split first two games to set up rubber match
Tyler Gerteisen hit an RBI single in the top of the 11th to score Connor Moore for the winning run on Saturday. He also threw Brewer out at the plate on a key play, making up for the drop of a fly ball in left that allowed JU to take an 8-7 lead later that inning.
The Dolphins won the first game 10-0 on Clay High graduate Richard Long’s two-hit, eight-inning shutout. It was Long's second complete game victory against UNF in two years.
JU scored seven runs in the bottom of the eighth to end the game on the 10-run rule, with Blake Edmonds ending it on a two-run single.
The two teams combined for 32 runs and 48 hits in the next two games, and both were in doubt until the final out.
Here are the takeaways from the series:
Both JU and UNF have some cleaning up to do
The second two games were certainly sloppy. JU and UNF combined for 11 errors, 30 walks, 10 hit batters and four wild pitches, with eight unearned runs.
“Hopefully we can continue to clean some things up, play a little bit better brand of baseball,” Hayes said. “I look forward to getting after it the next few weeks. It was hard on the heart rate.”
UNF coach Joe Mercadante, whose team is four games behind first in the ASUN with 12 conference games left and currently tied with Eastern Kentucky for the eighth and last spot in the conference tournament, said he will stress a sense of urgency in the coming weeks.
“You certainly hope,” he said of the need to play better fundamental baseball. “We came into the weekend knowing that JU is going to do a great job of exposing you when you give them some freebies and they certainly did that. We’re just going to stay coaching them, keep up with it and [the errors and mental mistakes] are certainly something we’re going to address moving forward.”
Injuries have helped JU develop depth
So far the Dolphins have lost last year’s leading hitter Blake DeLamielleure to a season-ending hip injury, the current leading hitter Justin Nadeau to a hand injury indefinitely and relief ace Chris Lotito to a shoulder injury.
Other minor injuries and illnesses continue to plague the team.
But Hayes always seems to have someone step up. Edmonds, hitting .237 entering the UNF series, was 4 for 8 with six RBI against the Ospreys; midweek starter Barquin, who has been fed to Florida State twice and Florida, UCF and USF, has given JU some quality innings while working into the weekend rotation; Fleming Island graduate Isaac Williams (3-2, 3.93, five saves) has filled in as the short reliever; and on Sunday, Peyton Prescott (hitting .083) and Conner Spelman (.155) delivered key RBI hits.
In Friday’s first game, Jaden Bastian (hitting .175) put JU ahead for good with a two-run single.
“The injuries are giving other guys a lot of chances,” said Long. “They’re coming through.”
Neither team is out of a game until the final out
UNF rallied from being run-ruled by JU to win the second game, coming from behind three times. That included a game-tying hit by Tripp McKinlay in the top of the ninth when the Ospreys were down to their last strike.
Down four runs in game three, they loaded the bases with one out in the top of the ninth and scored one run before JU finally got the last out with Valle.
For their part, the Dolphins were able to shake off the gut-wrenching loss on Saturday that ended less than 14 hours before the first pitch on Sunday to find a way to win.
“I’m proud of our overall group for their competitiveness and fight,” Hayes said. “But we have so much respect for UNF, how they play the game and go about their business. It’s what we expect.”
Mercadante told his players after the Sunday loss that they can take solace in the fact that nothing was decided until the last out.
“We never question the compete factor, never question the want behind them. We just have to play cleaner baseball.”
What’s in store for the rest of the ASUN season?
Both teams have four three-game conference sets remaining, two at home and two away.
UNF has the tougher road. Counting JU, the Ospreys will have played all three teams currently tied for the conference lead after facing Stetson at home April 26-28 and going on the road to Kennesaw on May 3-5.
North Florida plays at North Alabama May 10-12 and concludes the conference season at home against Florida Gulf Coast May 16-18.
JU is home against Queens April 26-28, plays at FGCU May 3-5, is home against Kennesaw May 10-12 and travels to Eastern Kentucky May 16-18.
This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: JU Dolphins hold on to win series against UNF Ospreys with 9-6 victory
