North Carolina State University Athletics
Red Team Takes Second In A Row
10/22/2005 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
Oct. 22, 2005
RALEIGH, N.C. - Matt Camp drove in a pair of runs with a sacrifice fly and a squeeze bunt to lead the Red team to a 5-3 victory over the White team in the second game of the Wolfpack's fall intrasquad world series Saturday at Doak Field. Four of the Red team's five runs were unearned, indicative of a sloppy defensive performance by the White team, which committed five errors. The Red team has won the first two games of the series.
Redshirt-freshman Joey Cutler picked up the victory with 2 1/3 innings of solid relief work. Cutler allowed one run on two hits, while walking two and striking out a game-high six. Redshirt-senior Ammer Cabrera, a transfer from Florida International, earned the save with 1 2/3 innings of perfect relief. Cabrera struck out two.
Adam McLaurin was the tough-luck loser after being charged with two runs, both unearned, in an inning of work. McLaurin allowed two infield singles and a sacrifice fly, but his teammates' inability to cleanly field bunts proved costly.
Matt Mangini and Reggie Dixon were the only players with two hits. Mangingdoubled and singled in three at-bats, while had a pair of singles and stole a base in three trips.
The Red team struck for a pair of unearned runs in the bottom of the first inning. Starter Branden Knapp got the first two batters of the inning on a groundout and a strikeout before Aaron Bates rolled a single through the right side of the infield. Jon Still followed with a fly ball to deep center field that should have ended the inning, but Chris Engle dropped the ball for an error. Bates scored on the play and Still went all the way to third base. Mangini's single to the shortstop hole drove in Still with the second run of the inning.
The White team came back with a two-out rally in the top of the second. Aaron Cone got things started by drawing a two-out walk and scoring on Jeremy Synan's booming double to left-center field. Jason Rago walked to put runners on first and second, and Engle partially atoned for his first-inning error with a game-tying RBI-single to left. Rago stopped at second on the play, and Jonathan Diaz walked to load the bases, but Dixon made a diving catch on Ramon Corona's fly ball to shallow right field to end the inning with the score still knotted at 2-2.
The White team took the lead in the top of the fourth. Engle was hit by a pitch and stole second. Diaz hit a one-hopper back to reliever Joey Cutler, who got Engle into a rundown between second and third. Engle was out for the second out of the inning, but stayed alive long enough for Diaz to reach second base. That proved to be important because Corona followed with a sharp grounder that took a bad hop and caromed off Camp's head at shortstop and into left field. Camp, who was knocked over and lay still for several seconds before getting up, was fine and stayed in the game. Diaz scored on the play to make the score 3-2.
The Red team came right back with two more unearned runs, these at the expense of McLaurin in the bottom of the fourth. Matt Payne led off with an infield single off McLaurin's glove. Bobby Hubbard sacrificed Payne to second, and then the fun began. Dixon laid down a perfect bunt up the third-base line for an infield single that put runners on the corners. Drew Martin's squeeze bunt drove in Payne to tie the score at 3-3, and Martin and Dixon pulled off a successful double steal to put runners at second and third. Camp's fly ball to left scored Dixon with the go-ahead run.
Staked to the lead, Cutler wriggled out of the biggest jam of the first two games of the series. Brian Aragon led off with a single to right, and Corona, running for Aragon as a courtesy runner, stole second. Mangum walked, and a passed ball by Bates put the runners at second and third with none out. Cutler got out of the jam by striking out Aaron Cone, Synan and Jason Rago, keeping the Red team's lead at 4-3 heading to the bottom of the fifth.
The Red team added an insurance run in the bottom of the sixth on a single to right-center by Dixon, a single up the middle by Drew Martin and Camp's squeeze bunt up the first-base line.
Game three of the series will be played on Sunday at 1 p.m., at Doak Field.
