University of Minnesota Athletics
University of Minnesota
Georgia State
Minnesota Clinches Series at Georgia State
3/6/2016 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
Minnesota picked up its second straight non-conference series with an 11-6 win at Georgia State on Sunday. The Gophers (7-3) matched their best start to a season through 10 games since 2009, when they also began 7-3.
The Maroon and Gold set season-highs in runs (11) and hits (16) in the contest. Micah Coffey and Matt Fiedler paced the offensive onslaught with 3-for-5 performances at the dish. Coffey added two RBI, including a solo home run in the second stanza.
Luke Pettersen, Jordan Smith and Terrin Vavra each contributed multi-hit games, while Eddie Estrada led the team with three RBI.
On the mound, Tyler Hanson got the win after starting and throwing 5.0 innings, surrendering four earned runs and striking out three.
Minnesota jumped out in front in the second inning when Coffey took a fastball over the right-field wall to lead off the inning.
The Gophers added to their lead in the third when Austin Athmann brought in a run on an RBI groundout. Coffey kept the momentum going and drilled an RBI single to left field to make it a 3-0 score line.
Georgia State (6-5) responded in the fourth when it scored on a wild pitch and on a sacrifice fly to cut the score to 3-2.
Minnesota mounted its biggest inning of the season when it scored five runs on five hits in the fifth. Athmann got things started by bringing in Fiedler on a double to left center and later scored on a sacrifice fly from Connor Schaefbauer.
With runners on first and third with one out, Estrada came on for a pinch-hit appearance and needed to see just one pitch to make an impact. The freshman launched a homer on the opening pitch of his at-bat to bring in three and make in an 8-2 game.
The Panthers had their largest inning of the contest in the bottom of the sixth when they plated three on five hits. All three runs came on RBI singles that scattered across the outfield.
The home team made things interesting in the seventh when it scored on another wild pitch to bring the score to 8-6.
After bring blanked in the seventh and eighth frames, the Gophers put the game out of reach in their final at-bat. Pettersen smacked an RBI single and was later brought in by Smith on a double down the left-field line that scored two. The score became 11-6 with Minnesota only needing three outs to win its second series of the season.
Jordan Jess was called on out of the bullpen and he delivered. The senior southpaw got a pair of strikeouts and induced a fly out to center to end the game.
The Gophers return to the diamond next weekend for a four-game series at Seattle University over a span of six days, March 11-16.
