Saturday, March 24, 2007

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (Mar. 24, 2007) - Junior Brandon Langston (Ringgold, Ga.) tossed a five-hit shutout in the series opener against North Florida, propelling the Bucs to a 5-0 win, but the Ospreys rallied with two eighth inning runs in the nightcap, earning the split with a 4-3 victory Saturday afternoon at Harmon Stadium.

Langston (5-1) struck out a career high eight batters in the opener, and allowed only one runner past second base, winning his fifth consecutive decision and lowering his ERA over his last six starts to 1.03.

The Bucs (17-8, 4-1) took a 1-0 lead in the second inning on a perfectly executed double steal.  With runners at the corners senior Michael Courtney (Knoxville, Tenn.) started toward second base and senior Justin Aughey (Davie, Fla.) broke for home when catcher James Belyea threw to second.  Second baseman TJ Thompson cutoff Belyea's throw and fired back to the plate, but Aughey slid in just ahead of Belyea's tag.

Senior C.J. Lee (Bristol, Va.) hammered his second home run of the season in the third inning, a two-run blast well over the left field fence off UNF starter Brad Johnson for a 3-0 advantage.

A fourth inning Courtney groundout and junior Anthony Russell's (Waldorf, Md.) eighth inning sacrifice fly capped the scoring in the game as the Bucs opened conference play 4-0 for the first time since 1983.

Johnson surrendered four runs on five hits in seven innings of work, falling to 2-4 on the season.

The Ospreys (11-16, 2-3) tagged the Bucs bullpen for two runs in the eighth inning, erasing a 3-2 deficit and handing the Bucs their first conference loss of 2007.

Senior Tony Lombardi (Windsor, Calif.) allowed the go-ahead run across, falling to 0-2 on the season.  UNF reliever Jonathan Turner pitched 1 2/3 innings of one hit ball to improve to 3-0, and Tyler Stohr struck out freshman Justin Tramble (Marietta, Ga.) for the game's final out, notching his fifth save of the season.

The teams conclude the series with a Sunday matinee at Harmon Stadium.  First pitch is scheduled for 1 p.m.