March 26, 2004

Box Score

Slippery Rock, Pa. - Freshman second baseman Phil Butch picked up a pair of RBIs to lead The Rock to a 3-2 victory over visiting Clarion in the teams' first Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference-Western Division game of the season at Jack Critchfield Park.

Butch, the star of Thursday night's 6-5, 11-inning win over Salem International, was one of six Rock players to have a hit in Friday's first game.

Senior right fielder Jason Curry had SRU's only extra-base hit of the game with a double.

Junior right-hander John Katich pitched a complete game to improve his record to 4-0, but struggled with control problems throughout the game. He finished the game with 10 bases on balls, struck out five and allowed two earned runs on only one hit

Neither team scored a run in the first three innings before Clarion took a brief 1-0 lead with a tally in the top of the fourth. The Rock erased that deficit with two runs in the bottom of the fourth.

Butch brought the tying run home with a ground out before senior shortstop Nathan Statzer's RBI single put The Rock on top for good.

Curry smacked a two-out double into the left field corner, moved to third on a passed ball and scored on Butch's RBI single to account for what proved to be the tying run.

Clarion narrowed the final gap to one with a run in the top of the seventh inning, but the potential tying run was gunned down at third base on the final play of the game.

Curry, after catching a fly ball for the second out with runners on second and third bases in the top of the seventh, threw a perfect strike to Statzer in short right field. Statzer's relay throw across the diamond to Rock senior third baseman Chase Rowe was on the money to gun down the runner and end the game.

The Rock wasted a golden scoring opportunity in the bottom of the first out, when they had the bases loaded with one out but failed to score.

SRU had runners on first and third bases with one out in the third inning and again failed to score as the next two hitters took called third strikes.

Both The Rock and Clarion finished the game with seven runners left on base.