COLLEGE BASEBALL/Rutgers knocked out of 1st place/PRINCETON SPLITS

sTORY Written by Home News Tribune Online 04/30/07
STAFF REPORT

Notre Dame broke a 4-4 tie with two runs in the ninth inning to defeat the Rutgers baseball team, 6-4, in a see-saw battle in front of a Bainton Field record crowd of 1,024 on Sunday.

The loss dropped Rutgers (25-16, 13-5 in the Big East) out of first place in the Big East standings for the first time in more than a month, a game behind league leader St. John\’s and into a tie with Louisville.

Tied at 4-4, Notre Dame\’s Danny Dressman led off the ninth with a slow bouncer between the pitcher\’s mound and first base for a single and Jeremy Barnes hit a ball to the wall in center field for an RBI triple before scoring on a sacrifice fly to give the Irish (24-19, 8-9 in Big East) a 6-4 lead.

The Scarlet Knights threatened in the bottom of the ninth, putting two of the first three batters on with a Todd Frazier walk and a Ryan Hill single, and moved both into scoring position on a double steal with two outs. Notre Dame lefty reliever Sam Elam came in to face the lefty Tom Edwards and struck out the Scarlet Knight to give Notre Dame the victory.

With the score knotted at 2-2 in the top of the sixth, the Irish put a pair of runners on, but pitcher Casey Gaynor got Matt Weglarz to hit grounder to third base, where Tim Querns picked it up, stepped on third and fired the ball to second baseman Mike Bionde for the force at second and Bionde completed a triple play when he threw to first baseman Tom Edwards to get Weglarz.

Gaynor ended the day with five strikeouts and allowed four runs on five hits in a strong 7.2 innings. Chris Lillis (2-2) was charged with the loss, giving up two runs on two hits and a strikeout in 1.1 innings of relief.

PRINCETON SPLITS: Needing a sweep of the four-game series at Cornell to tie Penn for the Ivy League\’s Gehrig Division title, Princeton University\’s baseball team lost the final game of the weekend, 5-4 in 12 innings on Sunday to be eliminated from title contention.

The Tigers won the opener 7-5.