PORT CHARLOTTE, Fla. -- Nick Collins was perfect at the plate and the Georgetown bullpen was again near-perfect as the Hoyas came from behind to defeat Saint Joseph’s 5-4 on Wednesday afternoon at the Snowbird Classic.
Collins was 3-3 at the plate reached base all five times on a walk and hit-by-pitch. The trio of Chris Giordano Felix van der Vaart and Max Allen combined for 5.1 innings of scoreless relief, yielding just three hits. Christian Venditti had a double and two RBI.
Saint Joseph’s (5-5) took a quick lead, scoring three runs off of starting pitcher Nick Leonard in the top of the first.
The Hoyas (6-7) began scratching away, getting a pair of runs back in the bottom of the second. Steve Anderson and Venditti led off with back-to-back doubles. Patrick Camporini laid down a sacrifice bunt that the pitcher bobbled, putting runners at the corners with nobody out. Evan Ryan followed with a ground out to shortstop to score Venditti.
In the bottom of the third, Eric Webber walked to lead things off and Collins followed with a single to center after fouling off three 0-2 pitches. AC Carter walked to load the bases and, after Anderson grounded into a fielder’s choice to force Webber at home, Venditti hit a sacrifice fly to center to tie the game.
Georgetown took their first lead in the bottom of the seventh. Ryan Busch reached on fielding error. Webber grounded to second, advancing Busch to second. Collins smoked the first pitch he saw into right field to score Busch.
The Hawks got a leadoff double in the top of the eighth off of Allen and the Hoyas summoned Tim Davis out of the bullpen. Davis came in and struck out three of the next four batters, yielding just a harmful infield single, to get out of the jam.
The Hoyas added a big insurance run in the bottom of the eighth, pushing across an unearned run. Camporini and Jake Kuzbel both reached courtesy of fielding errors to put runners on first and second with no outs. After Busch flied out, Webber smacked an RBI single to center to score Camporini and give Georgetown a 5-3 lead.
Saint Joseph’s scored a run in the top of the ninth, getting back-to-back doubles with one out. With runners on the corners with one out, Davis induced a pop up to second base and a fly out to center field to end the game.
