Baseball Shuts Down Fordham, 7-2

Sunday, February 21

Greenville, S.C.

11:00 AM

Michigan State University

3-0

Fordham

1-2

Fordham

Michigan State

2/21/2016 12:00:00 AM | Baseball

Box Score

Feb. 21, 2016

Box Score

The Michigan State baseball team wrapped up its opening weekend with a 7-2 win over Fordham to finish 3-0 in Greenville. S.C. Starting pitcher Walter Borkovich earned the win, going 7 IP, allowing just three hits and one run while striking out six.

"I thought we played better as the weekend progressed," said head coach Jake Boss Jr. "I thought we played our best baseball of the weekend all around, top to bottom today. Pretty clean defensively. We got a great pitching effort and we were pretty efficient offensively. I think that's what we were looking to do . We were looking to come out and continue to play good baseball and get better as the week progressed and hopefully we can continue to do that."

The Rams got out to an early 1-0 lead in the first, but that would be it for them for the rest of the day against Borkovich who locked in from there.

MSU answered in the home half of the inning and tied it back up when sophomore Brandon Hughes hit his first homer of the season over the right field wall.

MSU then gained control of the lead in the second inning with a pair of runs on a Matt Byars double down the right field line, bringing home Zack McGuire and Dan Durkin, who each walked to start the inning.

Borkovich went on to retire 16 of the next 17 batters he faced, including six strikeouts. He allowed just one base runner over the next six innings on a single in the fourth.

"He was able to locate his breaking ball and he was getting ahead early in the count," said Boss. "He got a lot of swings and misses both with the fastball and the breaking ball. That really allowed him to settle into it. He felt like he was in charge most of the way. He was really, really good there, especially after the first inning."

McGuire walked again in the fourth and then a nice piece of inside-out hitting from Dan Durkin sent a ball into the left field corner that allowed McGuire to score from first, extending the lead to 4-1.

The Spartans continued to increase their lead in the fifth, started by a Jordan Zimmerman double to deep center that scored Kris Simonton. Hughes then followed with a single up the middle that scored Zimmerman to make it 6-1.

Dakota Mekkes struck out three in his lone inning of relief. Joe Mockbee came on for the ninth and gave up one run on three hits.

Brandon Hughes and Matt Byars each had two RBIs in the game.

Michigan State's offense put up big numbers over the course of the weekend, scoring 33 runs on 41 hits in three games.

The Spartans return to action next weekend with three more games in Corpus Christi, starting on Friday at 3 p.m. vs. Texas State.