Baseball Traps the Bears

3/10/2006

VANDERBILT BEATS BROWN 9-5

NASHVILLE ­­— Sophomore lefthander David Price struck out a career-high 15 batters in seven innings of work to lead Vanderbilt to a 9-5 win over Brown Friday afternoon at Hawkins Field.

Price (1-2) picked up his first win of the year and held the Bears hitless through three and two-thirds innings before Eric Larson broke through with a single up the middle in the fourth. The Murfreesboro product allowed just one run on four hits with a walk and left the game with a 7-1 lead.

“It felt good to go out there and do well today,” said Price. “I threw a lot of fastballs and had good command throughout.”

“I thought David went out and had his best game of the year,” said head coach Tim Corbin. “You could tell this was coming as he has been getting stronger each time out. It was good to see him get the win after a tough loss in his outing last week.”

Vanderbilt jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the first on a RBI double by Parker Hanks and a RBI single by Dominic de la Osa. They added another run in the second on a RBI single by David Macias.

The Commodores added three more runs in the fourth, courtesy of a two-run single by Brian Hernandez and a sacrifice fly RBI by Dominic de la Osa.

Brown scored a run in the sixth when catcher Devin Thomas hit a two-out double to left-center and then scored on a RBI single by Eric Larson.

Vanderbilt scored in a unique way in the bottom of the sixth as David Macias scored from second on Brian Hernandez’ sacrifice fly to deep centerfield.

The Bears jumped back in the game in the eight with two two-run homers to cut the deficit to 7-5. Paul Christian had the first and Jeff Dietz the second round-tripper off of reliever Josh Zeid.

Nick Christiani then came in and pitched the final 1.2 innings to pick up his first career save. He did not allow a hit, while striking out two in the win.

Vanderbilt added two insurance runs in the bottom of the eighth to close out the scoring.

Brown starter Bryan Tews (0-2) was charged with the loss after giving up seven runs on 15 hits in six innings of work.

The Commodores knocked out a season high 16 hits with four doubles on the day. Parker Hanks and Dominic de la Osa paced the team with three hits each, while David Macias, Brian Hernandez, Ryan Davis and Brad French each had three hits. De La Osa had four RBI and Hernandez had three to lead the scoring attack.

“I thought we were better offensively today,” said Corbin. “We came out strong early and were aggressive on the bases and took advantage of some situations to score a few more runs.”

The two teams will meet in the second game of the series tomorrow afternoon at 2 p.m. Senior righthander Matt Buschmann is slated to pitch for the Commodores.

Brown 000 001 040 – 5 8 0

Vanderbilt 210 301 02x – 9 16 0

Tews, Silverman (7), Silverstein (8) and Thomas. Price, Zeid (8), Christiani (8) and Hernandez. W- Price 1-2, L- Tews 0-2. SV- Christiani (1). HR- BU: Christian (1), Dietz (1).