O'Rourke Deals Three-Hit Shutout in Baseball Win over SNHU, 5-0
MANCHESTER, NH – With 12 strikeouts in a complete game,
senior captain Ryan O'Rourke
(Worcester, MA) pitched the Merrimack College baseball
Warriors to a 5-0 win at Southern New Hampshire University Tuesday
afternoon on Penmen Field.
“If we continue to play good defense behind good pitching,
we'll win a lot more games,” said head coach
Joe Sarno. “O'Rourke once again
expressed great poise and excellent command to propel us to the
win.”
For O'Rourke, the shutout made 20.0 straight innings
without allowing a run after a career-high 16 strikeouts last time
out in 11.0 innings against Franklin Pierce. Merrimack also
played error-free baseball behind O'Rourke stellar pitching.
In the three games so far this season against the Penmen, the
Warriors have not committed a single error.
Merrimack got on the scoreboard first in the fourth inning after
a pair of Penmen errors to get two Warriors aboard. Sophomore
Tim
Curran (South Weymouth, MA) drove in the only run of
the inning with one of three hits, scoring senior captain
Brendan
Pyburn (Peabody, MA) from second.
In the fifth inning, Pyburn bombed a triple to right center to
score a pair of runs before senior captain Matt Hogan (Andover,
MA) cracked a two-run homer in the next at bat to go up
5-0.
O'Rourke continued dealing through nine innings to out-duel
Southern New Hampshire's John Pickowicz, who went 8.0 innings while
allowing all five earned runs.
With the win, Merrimack improves to 12-10 overall and 7-8 in
Conference play while the Penmen fall to 13-17 and 6-7 in
Conference play.
The Warriors return to action on Wednesday at Saint Anselm
College for a 3:30pm Northeast-10 Conference contest.
