LAKELAND, Fla. – The No. 9 Nova Southeastern University baseball team (32-13, 15-4 SSC) took care of business at Historic Henley Field on Friday night, defeated the No. 17 Florida Southern Mocs (27-14, 9-7) by a score of 6-3. Alex Mateo earned the win, while Devin Raftery picked up his tenth save. The win marks the 200th of head coach Greg Brown's young career.
The Sharks were down 1-0 after Mateo allowed a solo home run in the bottom of the third inning. Brandon Gomez quickly responded, leading off the top of the fourth inning with a mammoth home run to left-centerfield, tying the game at 1-1. Florida Southern would tack on another run in the bottom of the fourth, after stringing together two hits and a sacrifice fly.
With the score 2-1 heading into the sixth, the Sharks would get their third opportunity at the Mocs' Ben Richardson. Daniel Zardon lead off with a double to centerfield, following by a double down the left field line by Gomez, scoring Zardon from second. Andres Visbal then smashed what proved to be the game-winning hit, crushing a no-doubt two-run home run over the right field wall to give the Sharks a 4-2 lead. Visbal finished the day 3-for-4 with two doubles and a home run.
The Sharks put two more runs on the board, scoring once in the seventh and eighth innings on RBI singles from Zardon and Michael Hernandez. Mateo was pulled from the game in the eighth in favor of closer Devin Raftery after allowing one run to make the score 6-3.
Raftery took care of the rest, tossing 1.2 innings of scoreless baseball to conclude the night. The Sharks will be back in action Saturday afternoon, taking on the Mocs in a doubleheader at Henley Field beginning at 1:00 p.m.
