JMU baseball drops series finale to St. John’s, 4-2

Starter Ryan McCormick worked seven innings and St. John’s held on for the 4-2 win after striking for three runs in the third to complete the three-game sweep of JMU on Sunday afternoon at Kaiser Stadium.

SJU won its 10^th game in a row, all at home, to improve to 13-10 and won for the 21^st straight time at home. JMU fell to 8-14.

JMU sophomore starter Mark Gunst (Fairfax, Va./Paul VI) suffered the loss after allowing four runs, three earned, on four hits while working a career-best 6 2/3 innings.

In a game featuring eight total hits between the teams, McCormick limited JMU to two runs on four hits with seven strikeouts in seven innings to improve to 3-1. Joe Kuzia earned his second save in as many days with two perfect innings of relief and three strikeouts.

Senior third baseman Ty McFarland (Bridgewater, Va./Turner Ashby) tripled and supplied the only RBI of the game for the Dukes.  Right fielder Zach Lauricella had two of the four Red Storm hits. Catcher Tyler Sanchez had an RBI, walk, hit and two runs scored.

The Dukes grabbed the lead in the second as junior center fielder Kevin Husum (Panama City, Fla./Bay) singled and scored on McFarland’s triple to right center. McFarland then scored on a wild pitch to make it 2-0.

A single, walk and sacrifice bunt put two in scoring position for St. John’s in the bottom of the third with one out.

The Dukes were unable to mount much further damage. After a leadoff double in the fourth, McCormick retired 10 in a row until a single and a walk in the seventh. Bret Dennis then lifted a sacrifice fly to center that was dropped for an error. Both runners scored on the play with Dennis advancing all the way to third. He scored one batter later on a wild pitch to put the Red Storm ahead 3-2.

St. John’s added an insurance run in the seventh as Sanchez went down in the zone to drive a solo shot to left field and make it 4-2.

JMU returns home Tuesday to host Radford at 4 p.m.