2008 Woodie Awards
Huskies Find Offense In Rout Of Stags
Baseball
Jacob Goldberg
Issue date: 4/4/08 Section: Sports
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Trent DeLazzer picked up the win, improving to 2-1 on the year. He pitched 6.2 innings and was able to continually get out of jams throughout the game, until he let up two runs in the seventh.
"He earned the right in the seventh inning, we were going to take him out there because Turgeon was ready in the pen," said head coach Jim Penders. "Something got in my head though and said give him a chance. He got into this mess but he was also throwing strikes, and he almost did by getting two punch-outs."
With the score 3-2 going into the bottom half of the sixth inning the Huskies exploded, scoring 11 runs in two innings. On the game the Huskies had eight players amount for 15 hits.
"This is what the doctor ordered after Wednesday, we kind of wanted Fairfield to pay for our mistakes Wednesday," Penders said. "We wanted to come out and when they scored we wanted extra emphasis on how we answered."
Fairfield threw everything they had at the Huskies with five separate pitchers taking the mound, including a submariner and a side-arm pitcher. "You can't change your approach based on the pitchers, the approach stays the same we try to stay inside of the ball and get some line-drives," Penders said
Shortstop Mike Olt said he was not affected by the different pitchers, as he had two hits during the game, including the nail in the coffin with a massive grand slam during an eight-run seventh inning.
"They were good pitchers I thought, the first pitchers mix up his angles a couple of times and he painted his corners well," Olt said. "Kept the game close until he left, I thought he played very well."
For Olt this was a breakout game.
"It felt great, I have been kinda of struggling at the plate," Olt said. "I haven't been comfortable up there so it felt really good to see that pitch and connect on it."
The whole line-up performed today, including Doug Elliot, who went 3-for-4.
"Doug Elliot played really well, he kind of gets lost in all the stats but he had a couple of huge at bats for us," Penders said. "He worked an 0-2 count to a 3-2 count with the bases loaded and got a big RBI single, he started a rally early in the game with a single, had three RBI's in big spots when we needed him."
Plenty of praise was given around to various players, but about all the team had a sense of confidence in them, something that has not been there throughout the season.
"We are on a role, we changed from the beginning of the season where we started 0-6, we are starting to roll right along," Olt said.
"I like the way we have responded after our start I think this weekend will be one hell of a test, this weekend will tell us how good we are and how could we think we can be," Penders added.
The Huskies' next challenge is a three-game series against Cincinnati.
Contact Jacob Goldberg at Jacob.Goldberg@UConn.edu.
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