MIAMI SHORES, Fla. – The Barry Buccaneers won their first Sunshine State Conference series by taking both games of a Saturday doubleheader at Feinbloom field versus the visiting Rollins College Tars.
Coming into the day, the biggest question was if the weather and the Bucs pitching staff would hold up; they both did. The Bucs (20-12; 3-9 SSC) used stellar pitching from Calvin Rayburn and Joe Iorio, timely hitting and took advantage of some defensive miscues from Rollins (13-16; 1-11 SSC) to take both games at home. The Bucs entered the game 1-9 in the conference after dropping the series opener 9-3 Friday night prompting Coach Marc Pavao to say his team “needed focus and to take it one game at a time down the stretch”; well the Bucs echoed their coaches sentiments this afternoon.
Game One
After using the bullpen for seven plus innings Friday night, senior Calvin Rayburn, making his first start of the season gave the Bucs just what they needed from their starting pitcher. Rayburn tossed a 127 pitch, five strikeout complete game for the victory, allowing only an unearned run for his second win of the season.
The Bucs got on the board in the bottom of the 5th when JC Cardenas singled to lead off the inning. After a Sheehan Planas-Arteaga walk, Barry was set up with runners on first and second with one out for Adrian English. After Cardenas stole third, on the very next pitch, English laced a line drive right to the shortstop Bryan Perlmutter, who immediately threw to first to try and double off Planas-Arteaga. When the ball got away from the first baseman, Cardenas easily scored giving the Bucs a 1-0 lead.
Rollins responded in the very next inning. Matt Hendricks reached on an error to start the 6th, after a sacrifice bunt and wild pitch, he was on third. To atone for his error, Perlmutter redeemed himself with an RBI single to tie the game at 1.
English got the Bucs offense going again in the bottom of the 7th with a one out, solo homerun over the left field scoreboard to make it 2-1. After a huge error by the Rollins second baseman, Ramon Valdez reached base. Greg Brodzinski singled to keep the inning alive. An RBI single from Tyler Kellmann put the Bucs ahead 3-1 and Carlos Matamoros followed with a two-out, two-strike, two-run triple to score Kellman and Brodzinski to give the Bucs a 5-1 lead that Rayburn would never relinquish as the Bucs took game one, 5-1. Rayburn improved his record to 2-1 with the victory. Jack Murray took the loss for the Tars, as he fell to 2-3 on the season.
Game Two
In his second start of the season, Joe Iorio took the ball in game two and dominated from start to finish with a complete game victory of his own to give the Bucs the series win.
Barry got on the board in the 2nd inning. Valdez lead off with a walk, he then stole second and advanced to third on a wild pitch from the pitcher Isiah Sakany. After a walk, Kellmann reached first and the Bucs had runners on first and third with one out. Following a strikeout for the second out of the inning, Rollins tried to throw out Kellman, who was running on the pitch for the strike ‘em out throw ‘em out double play that would have ended the inning. Kellmann was safe at second, and during the throw, Valdez scored to make it 1-0. That is all Iorio would need on this day.
The Bucs added 2 insurance runs in the bottom of the 6th capped off by RBI singles for Kellman and Matamoros to give the Bucs a 3-1 cushion. Iorio finished just as strong as he started by striking out the side in the 7th, giving him a career-high nine strikeouts in his first career complete shutout as a Buccaneer.
English and Matamoros paced the Bucs offense by each collecting 3 hits on the day, combining for four RBI. Brodzinski and Cardenas each added 2 hits on the day as the Bucs finally combined solid pitching with clutch hitting to take the series from Rollins two games to one.
Barry will enjoy a well-earned week off before they head up I-95 to Boca Raton to face #9 nationally ranked and longtime rival Lynn University. Game one will be Friday, first pitch scheduled for 3PM, concluding with a doubleheader slated for Saturday at 1PM.
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