The George Mason baseball team used a six-run fifth inning and six strong innings from Tyler Zombro as it defeated the Canisius Golden Griffins 8-3 on Sunday afternoon to win its second consecutive weekend series.
The Patriots improve to 16-20-1, 3-1 vs. the Golden Griffins this season. Zombro improves to 5-1 in the victory as he struck out five batters and allowed four hits with no walks in his time on the mound.
Canisius was held off the scoreboard for the first five innings of the game and struck out five times in the first three. The Patriots jumped out to a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the fourth when Brandon Gum led off with a single, stole second, advanced to third on a Jake Kalish grounder to the right side and jogged home on Kent Blackstone’s single up the middle, his 37th RBI of the season.
Mason put a strong grip on the ballgame with six runs on four hits, three walks and one Canisius error in the bottom of the fifth. The bases were loaded on three different occasions, resulting in a Michael Smithwalk, Gum’s second single of the day and Brady Acker’s two-run single to left field. Kalish also doubled into right field with men on second and third to score two runs for six in the inning.
Three runs were brought home in the top of the sixth on two errors by Canisius, all unearned as the score moved to 7-3, however one run was put back on in the bottom half as Luke Willis scored on an RBI groundout.
Willis and Gum each recorded two hits in the ballgame, extending their active hit streaks to 15 games each. It was the 21st multi-hit game of the season for Willis, who also stole his 22nd base of the season to eclipse his total of 21 in 2014. Mason finished with 11 hits in the contest, the 23rd game with at least 10 hits.
Joe Williams, Evan Porcella and Tyler Tobin each threw one inning of scoreless relief in that order to put away the game for the Patriots. After allowing a single and double with zero outs Tobin struck out the next three batters to seal the deal.
Up next the Patriots travel to Harrisonburg, Va. for a 6:30 p.m. game against James Madison on Tuesday, April 21 before hosting George Washington for three games next weekend.
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Chris Graham
