By Steven Wolff -- STAFF WRITER At Bill Davis Stadium, the Hofstra baseball team fell in the second game of a three-game series, as Ohio State rallied past the Pride in the eighth inning by a final of 4-2.
Hofstra scored first, as they put up two runs in the third inning on a fielder’s choice and a RBI single by Steven Foster. However, the Buckeyes retaliated the next inning as first baseman Troy Kuhn hit a sacrifice fly to cut the lead in half.
The game would still remain 2-1 until the eighth inning, where Ohio State tied the game on a single by left fielder Ronnie Dawson. Then Kuhn, who already had a RBI for the Buckeyes, drove in two on a bases loaded single off of Pride pitcher Adam Heidenfelder. That would give Ohio State a 4-2 advantage, and they would not look back.
Pride starter Chris Weiss pitched well for Hofstra, throwing seven innings of one-run ball, lowering his ERA to 4.01. Then reliever John Rooney, who got tagged with the loss, failed to record an out and gave up all three runs in the eighth inning, falling to 1-2 on the year.
As for the Buckeyes, starter Adam Niemeyer also gave Ohio State seven solid innings, giving up just two runs on five hits. However, reliever Seth Kinker pitched a scoreless eighth, and got the win, improving to 2-1 on the year.
Yianni Pavlopoulos got his fourth save of the year with a scoreless ninth.
No Pride player had more than one hit on the afternoon, with the team managing just five hits total.
Hofstra has now lost three in a row, falling to 5-13 on the season. On the other hand, with the win Ohio State improves to 10-6-1.
The Pride will wrap up the series on Sunday at 1 p.m.