FAMU’s John Hancock pitching against Dayton. Photo Courtesy: FAMU Athletics
The Florida A&M Rattlers baseball team won their third straight game against the Dayton Flyers by a score of 6-5 Sunday afternoon at Moore-Kittles field. And the Rattlers swept the series against them (3-0).
On Friday afternoon the Rattlers won by a score (8-5), Saturday afternoon the Rattlers won by a score of (8-3) and Sunday afternoon by a score of (6-5). The Rattlers moved to (4-5) on the season, while Dayton dropped to (3-7) on their season.
For the first 3 innings in this game, both teams were scoreless. But, heading into the 4th inning FAMU would erase the goose egg game and score 6 times to put the game at 6-0.
“Well they threw a pretty good arm it was their #2 last year I think he had thrown 50 innings coming in with 80 strikeouts. So, what we did was we just didn’t swing at his curveballs so we got two strikes. That was our approach and he wasn’t able to have that fastball command to beat us,” said Head Coach Jamey Shouppe.
There were a few occasions where the Rattlers had the bases loaded but couldn’t capitalize on them. The Flyers were quick to respond and cut the lead as they scored 3 times at the top of the 5th inning.
The Rattlers would only score in the 6th inning of this game as the Flyers added two more scores at the top of the 8th inning to cut the Rattlers lead down to one (6-5). The Flyers wouldn’t go away what seemed to be a shout out quickly turned around and became game coming down to the wire.
The Rattlers to rely on their defense to pull through and win this game and that’s what happened. At the top of the 9th Outfielder, LJ Bryant who had two hits in the game caught the ball to strikeout the Flyers chance of coming back and winning this game.
“I mean we’re just working on staying at our plan. We got a plan to come in and play no matter what line up we have and we’re just doing the best to execute that plan,” said Bryant.
“Yeah, if I didn’t have it then I would’ve heard from him (Coach Shouppe),” Bryant continued.
After dropping the series against Mercer and Eastern Illinois the Rattlers bounced back their last series at home before they travel to Gainesville to take on the University of Florida.
“We play Florida and when you play good ball teams (talking about the #1 team in the country). You can’t worry about where they’re ranked, we gone down there several years ago they were ranked 6th in the country and you play the game,” said Shouppe.
The Rattlers will look to continue this momentum as they go on the road to take on the Gators at Alfred A. McKethan Stadium Wednesday at 6 p.m.