The Florida A&M baseball team dropped to 4-9 on the season after being swept by the University of South Florida in a three-game series in Tampa this past weekend.
The final game of the series was moved up from Sunday to Saturday as the teams were worried about severe weather approaching the area.
The Rattlers struggled offensively against the Bulls. FAMU only managed to score four runs in the entire series, including being shutout in two of the three games. USF outscored FAMU 24-4 in the series.
USF senior pitcher, Kyle Eastham, helped the Bulls complete the sweep by pitching seven-shutout inning in the final game Saturday. Eastham allowed four hits and struck out 11 batters in the game.
Eastham’s effort was just part of what turned out to be a great pitching series for the Bulls. USF’s starting pitchers combined to throw 21 scoreless innings against the Rattlers including not allowing a single walk in the series.
The Rattlers Heath Blackburn played hard but struggled against the Bulls.
In his fourth start of the season, Blackburn threw 95 pitches in seven innings of work. The Bulls managed nine hits, only four of them earned against Blackburn.
The Rattlers kept the game close until the bottom of the fifth inning. Already leading 2-0, USF broke the game open by scoring four runs in the inning after loading the bases with no outs.
FAMU mustered only five hits in the game. Darius Washington, Adam Decker, Daniel Lee, Reginald Grant and John Scott each registered one hit in the game.
Shortstop Sam Mende led the Bulls offensive effort. Mende was perfect from the plate going 3-for 3 and scoring two runs.
Junior Andrew Longley also played well for USF. Longley had a career-high three RBIs and went 6-for-9 in the series with five total RBIs.
The Rattlers also lost 13-4 and 5-0 in the series.
FAMU will look to get back to its winning ways when the team returns to Tallahassee for a doubleheader against North Carolina Central.