Metro overtakes Rangers on road
‘Runners win three, passing Regis in RMAC
By Eric Lansing
lansing@mscd.edu

  As of April 5, the Metro baseball team sat in sixth place in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference with a record of 8-8. Regis sat in fifth place with a 4-3 RMAC record.
  The two teams battled it out over the past weekend, not only for fifth place, but to take strides at moving up the RMAC ladder toward the playoffs. Metro, which came into the weekend riding a four-game winning streak, went on the road against the Rangers of Regis and won three out of the four games.
  The three RMAC wins moved the Roadrunners into that fifth position and now only lay two games back of fourth-place New Mexico Highlands.
  “ It was a good series for us,” Metro head coach Vince Porreco said. “The day before, we had outstanding pitching and today was one of those days that the bats had to wake up. Anytime you can go onto the road and win a series against a good club like Regis, you’ve done something.”
  Friday’s game was moved to Saturday as a doubleheader due to inclement weather. Despite the rain, Metro “pitched” two complete game shutouts against the Rangers, 1-0 and 5-0.
  Junior Braden Ham and senior Ryan Bright combined for eight hits (all singles), no runs, one walk and eight strikeouts in 16 innings of work. But the one guy who doesn’t show up in that box score is sophomore catcher Reece Gorman, who called two games.
  “ My pitching staff is great and I love catching from all of the guys.” Gorman said. “That first day, we came out and we were ready to play.”
  Although he only went 2-for-7 and had two runs in the two games, Gorman takes the leadership role by calling the perfect pitch and yelling at the defense about which base to throw the ball to.
  “ He is a big part of our program and we need him down the stretch,” Porreco said on Gorman’s great weekend. “It was the first time he caught all four games (in a series) and he showed me something. He showed me some heart and some desire and did a great job behind the plate all weekend.”
  Game one’s only run came in the fourth inning when Gorman doubled down the left field line and was brought home on sophomore Jake Palmer’s sacrifice fly. Ham recorded his team-leading fifth win of the season (5-2) while Regis junior pitcher Craig   Deaver took the loss in a complete game with one run and a four-strikeout effort.
  Game two saw a pitching duel between senior pitchers Bright and Matt Huff. Both took shutouts into the seventh inning when   Metro scored first and took a 1-0 lead. After Palmer gave Metro that lead with his seventh homerun of season, Metro scored one run in the eighth inning and three more in the ninth.
  Three Ranger errors led to the three runs in the ninth inning and they failed to put up any runs in their half of the ninth to finish the game at 5-0. Games three and four were very much different than those of Saturday as Metro split with Regis by scores of 8-6 and lost the finale 6-5.
  The first two games provided only three extra base hits, while game three smashed out 13 with 11 doubles, a triple, and a homerun. Senior Randy Lashua came out with the hardest of the extra-base hits to get a triple and his third homerun in two weeks.
  Lashua started the scoring as he hit a two-run triple to right field. But Regis scored their first runs of the series by putting up two runs in the bottom of the second when sophomore Peter Whatley doubled in a run and freshman Mike Benton singled in a run to even the scoring at two apiece.
  Metro then jumped back quickly, putting up a three spot in the very next inning, which included Lashua’s full-count blast over the leftfield wall.
  After Regis cut into the lead with a single run in the bottom of the third, Metro came through for junior starting pitcher Mike Bilek by adding three insurance runs in the top of the fifth to put the score at 8-3.
  With two outs and one run already scored in that fifth inning, the Rangers committed three errors that extended the inning and allowed Metro to score two more runs, which made the difference in an 8-6 final score.
  Lashua finished the game with three hits in three at-bats with two runs and four RBI while Gorman had a decent game, going 2-for-3 with two runs and a stolen base.
  It all started when Palmer was hit in the head by a pitch from freshman Greg Shaer. It looked as if Palmer was ducking to avoid the pitch, but the pitch was inside as it ricocheted off his helmet. Palmer looked OK as he threw down the bat to head to first base, but after a few steps he slowly collapsed to the ground and seemed to be out for a few moments. He walked to the bench on his own power, but Porreco mentioned it hurt the team because Palmer was swinging the bat well all weekend and it could have made the difference having a big bat out of the lineup.
  For the first three games, Palmer went a combined 3-8, four RBI, a homerun, a double, and a stolen base. At the very least, he was a significant part of the team’s success. This hurt Metro as in the case of the sixth inning when two men were in scoring position and junior Ryan Sbresny, who had been 0-for-8 in the series, struck out to end the scoring threat.
  Senior Mike Hoefs put in a solid game as he went 4-for-5 with two homeruns and three RBI. The homeruns were his sixth and seventh of the year and his first since March 5 when he hit a grand slam in the bottom of the eight to help Metro defeat St. Cloud 10-6. With Metro down one run heading into the ninth inning, Lashua started an attempted rally by hitting a single off the third base bag. But after freshman Dakota Nahm reached on a fielder’s choice, freshman Tommy Frikken would hit a slow roller to the shortstop and Nahm would be out on the force at second.
  The Roadrunners out-hit the Rangers 14-10 but could not take advantage of those base runners as they left 11 of them on the base paths. Gorman said it was a game they should have won and although Hoefs and freshman Vincent Vasquez played well, some guys just did not step at times.
  Sophomore Josh Eckert allowed base runners in all but one of the six innings he pitched and allowed six runs on nine hits while walking two and hitting another. It was Eckert’s fifth loss of the season and Schaer won his third game of the year pitching 5.2 innings allowing four runs with only one earned, and striking out two Roadrunners.
  After the weekend, Metro’s record improved to 17-15 overall and 11-9 in RMAC play. Metro heads back on the road with six games in five days to take on Western Oregon in a four-game series and then to Central Washington for a two-game series.