Feb. 16, 2007

Box Score | Barksdale Audio | Brady Audio | Valli Audio

WILMINGTON, NC - Temple slammed four solo homeruns, with two each off the bats of senior Dan Brady and sophomore Sean Barksdale, but dropped its season opener at UNC Wilmington, 5-4, on Friday afternoon at Brooks Field. The duo produced all of the Owls runs and four of their six hits on the day.

The ball was flying out of the park as the two teams combined for six homers on the day. UNCW, which has won forty-plus games for the past four seasons and won two of the past three CAA Championships, had struggled so far this season, dropping its first four games. The hosts took advantage of a Temple team that had only been outside once prior to the game and made the most of three Owl errors.

"We didn't play nearly well enough to win on defense," Valli said. "Offensively, I don't know how many times we will hit four homeruns and lose this year.

The Seahawks jumped on the board in the second when Shane French launched a home run to left-center to put the hosts up, 1-0. Daniel Hargrave followed with a double down the leftfield line but Asjes retired the next two batters to end the inning.

Temple made some two-out noise in the top of the third and tied the game at one apiece. Barksdale made his first hit in the Cherry and White a memorable one, as he lined a home run over the 380 sign in dead center to tie the score.

UNCW took advantage of some TU miscues in the field to score three runs in the third. Rhett Miller walked to lead-off the frame and advanced to third on failed pick-off attempt by Temple starter, sophomore Arshwin Asjes. The hard-throwing right-hander struck out the next batter for the second out but a Mark Carver beat out a groundball to shortstop to drive in Miller. Jes Snyder followed with a homerun to left to put the Seahawks up 4-1.

Barksdale's second dinger, this one to left-center, led off the sixth inning and cut the deficit to 4-2. With two outs, Brady homered to left to bring the Owls within one run. Junior Stan Orzechowski singled and stole second but was stranded.

After UNC Wilmington scored in the sixth to make the score 5-3, Brady responded with his second homerun of the day to lead off the ninth to draw within one. The Owls went down in order the rest of the inning to fall to 0-1. The Seahawks improved to 1-4.

Asjes (0-1) was saddled with the loss after allowing four earned runs in three innings. The Temple bullpen of sophomore Tom Bingham freshman Kyle Monahan combined to throw five innings of relief with just one earned run. Bingham allowed two hits in four innings in his first appearance for the Owls.

UNCW freshman Daniel Cropper (1-0) pitched seven innings and allowed three earned runs for the win. He struck out five batters.

The two teams will resume the series on Saturday at 2 p.m. Temple sophomore Tom Dolan (3-3, 4.85 ERA in 2006) will oppose UNCW's Bradley Holt (0-1, 10.80 ERA).