Baseball: Vanderbilt 5, Monmouth 1

Nashville, Tenn. (VU AD) – No. 2 Vanderbilt used an outstanding outing from starter Kevin Ziomek to beat Monmouth 5-1 at Hawkins Field on Friday afternoon.

Ziomek’s night started off a little shaky when his first pitch of the game was raked into the left field corner for a double off the bat of Kyle Perry. But the left-hander responded getting a double play and a ground out to end the frame. The Hawks (1-1) tagged Ziomek (2-0) for a run in the second after the first two batters reached base but again the junior responded this time with a pair of strikeouts. Those two strikeouts jump started Ziomek’s night, as the lefty fanned 10 of the next 12 batters he faced en route to a career-high 11 strikeouts. He finished the night allowing one run on five hits over seven innings for his second win of the year.

While Ziomek was mowing down the Hawks’ offense the Commodores’ (5-1) offense was battling for runs. Dansby Swanson’s hustling double helped the home team tie the game in the third inning. The freshman led off with what appeared to be a routine single to left-center field but stretched it into a double before coming around to score on fellow freshman Xavier Turner’s fielder’s choice. In the fourth, Vince Conde put the Dores in the lead for good with a RBI-single to right field to score Mike Yastrzemski. Vanderbilt stretched the lead late in the game with two runs in the sixth and one more in the seventh.

Jack Lupo paced the Commodores’ with two hits and one RBI as the bottom half of the VU lineup produced five of the team’s six hits. Conrad Gregor matched a career-best with three walks and stole his team-leading sixth base of the season. Turner’s first inning single pushed his hitting streak to six games to begin his collegiate career. Craig Sweeney had two hits to lead Monmouth and starter Andrew McGee (0-1) was pinned with the loss allowing four runs on four hits in 5.1 innings.

Vanderbilt hosts the Hawks tomorrow afternoon with first pitch scheduled for 2 p.m. at Hawkins Field. Sophomore Tyler Beede (1-0) gets the ball for the Commodores against Monmouth’s left-hander Dan Smith (0-0). For ticket information call 615.322.GOLD or visit vucommodores.com.

            1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9  R   H E
MONMOUTH    0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0  1-  5 2
VANDERBILT  0 0 1 1 0 2 1 0 X  5-  6 0

Boxscore: Download Doc