Today: Mar 29, 2024

Owls edge University of New Haven

Matt GadSports Writer

A 6-4 win over the University of New Haven earned Southern a season win. They will visit their rivals once again at their home. But until May 2, the Owls have to keep battling.

“We lost a lot of these games last year,” head coach Tim Shea said. “Learning how to win is contagious – everybody’s doing their job and, as a result, we’ve got it rolling pretty well.”

Nate Carney picked up the win, sending him to 4-2 on the year. The freshman left-hander tossed six innings of work, allowing eight hits, three runs and a wild pitch. He relied heavily on the ground ball, picking up 12 of his outs at first base.

Carney now has a 3.02 ERA in 53.2 innings of work this season. This was the only start in which he did not strike a batter out.

“New Haven’s a good team. You gotta get to them early and we did a good job getting two in the first,” Shea said. “We had some other opportunities but we didn’t get any runs out of it.”

In that first, Nick Lamberti opened the scoring on a RBI single, plating leadoff hitter Jim Palmer. Kyle Hart followed, driving home Lamberti to make it 2-0. In the third, Tyler Criscuolo flied out to center field, but Palmer was able to score on the sacrifice fly.

Palmer went 2-4, scoring two runs on the afternoon.

“I think we just have a lot of veteran guys on this team that keep us level-headed and keep us working later in the game to get the job done,” said Palmer. “I’m happy that we’re coming together as a team – everybody’s working towards the same goal – we’re all pushing each other everyday to get better.”

A couple more hits and runs by Greg Zullo and Hart gave the Owls a 6-1 lead in the third inning. Carney allowed two more Chargers runs in the sixth before Griffin Bremer took over in relief. Bremer allowed a run to make it 6-4 before Quantique White came on for the save.

“Carney’s a competitor,” Shea said. “We weren’t sure how he was going to be on four days rest but he threw an early bullpen and looked really strong and he pitched six solid innings for us.”

He was helped out early by Lamberti, who is now hitting .408 for the Owls: “He leads the conference in hitting – he does a lot of good things,” said Shea. “He gets on base, he drives in runs – when we get Palmer and Lamberti on base good things happen.”

Palmer suffered an injury after just five games last season. He batted .200 and scored a run in his sophomore campaign, which came against Chestnut Hill Feb. 27.

“We set goals before the season – win a conference, win a regional, qualify for a College World Series,” Palmer said. “We just try to be the best team that we can be.”

The Owls, who are 8-1 in NE-10 play and 21-10-1 on the year, are home to Adelphi today at 3:30 p.m. They have a series against American International set for April 29-30 and then have the UNH game May 2.

Photo Credit: Palmer Piana

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