Big Train Pounds Express 10-3

by David Ireland

On Thursday afternoon at Knight's Field at Montgomery College-Rockville the Big Train defeated the Rockville Express 10-3. The pitching for the Big Train continued to be stellar as Ben Tootle (Jacksonville State) and Matt Hiserman (Santa Clara) combined to allow only two hits to the Express. But the real story was the Big Train bats with five players having multi-hit games and a team combined 12 hits for the game.

The Big Train, having been dealt a 16-3 loss to the Express this past Sunday were eager to face this Rockville team again.

Early on, the game had a familiar tone going as the Big Train bats were slowed by Rockville's starter, Jonathan Harmston (Pepperdine). The Express scored first when in the first inning Tootle allowed a run on a long double into centerfield by Mike Zuanich (UC-Santa Barbara) that scored Eric Allen (Delaware State).

Then in the third inning the Big Train plated two when in succession, Mike Matta (Mount St. Mary's) singled, Jon Karcich (Santa Clara) walked, Bert Smith (Jacksonville State) singled, Matta scored on a passed ball and Andrew Foster (Bowling Green) hit a sacrifice fly to score Karcich to take the lead. From there on out the Big Train would extend there lead and never look back.

With the score 3-1 in the top of the fifth Clay Whittemore (Jacksonville State) and Travis Owens (Bowling Green) each had RBI singles to provide clutch two out hitting to make the score 5-1. And then in the seventh two more runs scored when Chance Harst (Southern Mississippi) blasted a huge two RBI double to deep center field to make the score 7-3. In the eighth the game was put out of reach when Smith lined a single into left field to score the eighth run. And then Foster continued to rake with another RBI single later in the inning to make it 9-3. The final run came home after Owens lined a double off the left field wall who later scored on a Pat Minogue (Northern Illinois) RBI single.


R H E
Bethesda Big Train.. 002 120 221 - 10 12 2
Rockville Express... 100 020 000 - 3 2 1

W: Tootle (2-0)
L: Urso (0-1)

Box Score