MARTIN, Tenn.– The University of Tennessee at Martin baseball team was clicking on all cylinders in its 14-3 run rule triumph over Alabama A&M. The win also marked the 100th career victory for head coach Ryan Jenkins.
Will Smith had a monster day with three hits and four RBI’s while Jalen Fithian (two runs scored), Mac Danford (three RBI’s) and Benny DeTrude (first career home run) all went deep to tie a season-high 14 runs. Jackson Cooke (2-for-4) and Blaze Bell (2-for-5, two RBI’s) would tally doubles and multi-hit games while Andrew Fernandez went 2-for-3 with two walks.
Choyce Diffey (2-2) earned the win after allowing just two runs on four hits over a career-best 5.2 innings pitched. Rett Edwards (one inning pitched) and Baylor Jones (0.1 innings) finished the game off for the Skyhawks, who improved to 7-14.
In an early bases loaded jam in the first inning, Diffey escaped with a groundout and only one run allowed. The senior righty found his groove quickly thereafter, using a double play and a strikeout to hold the Bulldogs scoreless in the second frame. Alabama A&M (2-17) added a run in the top of the third but Diffey was the beneficiary of another double play in the fourth. In the following frame, he needed just eight pitches to retire the side in order – giving UT Martin some momentum in the process.
The Skyhawk bats got to work in the bottom of the fifth, scoring five runs in the frame. Two were gone in the inning with bases loaded and Smith answered the call with a bases clearing triple to give UT Martin a lead it wouldn’t relinquish for the rest of the game. Six pitches later, Danford would follow Smith’s act by blasting a two-run jack to left center field which would result in a 5-2 Skyhawk advantage.
Edwards entered the contest with the bases loaded in the sixth but he sat down the final batter of the inning with a called strikeout to keep the score at 5-2.
UT Martin grabbed some insurance from Fithian’s second long ball of the year when he drilled a 1-2 pitch down the left field line in the bottom of the sixth, extending the Skyhawk lead to five runs.
The Bulldogs crossed the plate on a sacrifice fly in the top of the seventh but UT Martin’s offense once again went off for a crooked number in the bottom half to end the contest early. Cooke (RBI double), DeTrude (two-run jack), Will Smith (RBI while reaching on an error), Danford (run-scoring walk) and Bell (two-run double – his second base hit of the inning) helped end the four-game homestand with a thunderous win.
The Skyhawks will travel to Western Illinois this weekend for their Ohio Valley Conference opener starting on Friday, March 22 at 3 p.m.
