Spring Break
Dawgs undergo season-opening series loss to Ospreys
Melissa Meador
Issue date: 2/26/08 Section: Sports
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Friday showed the appearance of a strong start to the season as the Bulldogs topped the Ospreys in an 8-2 victory for a fifth-straight, season-opening win.
The Bulldogs' offense was sparked by a grand slam from senior outfielder Andy Rice.
The slam marked Rice's sixth career home run and second grand slam after his walk-off grand slam against Auburn last season. Rice said until that point he was having difficulty finding balls to hit off Ospreys starter Ty Pryor.
"I was his first batter in the game, and he had been challenging me with fastballs up to that point," Rice said. "He piped one right down the middle, and I just stayed back on it and made good contact. I did what I could with it."
The long ball made another appearance in the sixth inning as sophomore second baseman Brandon Turner knocked a solo home run over right center field.
Turner would finish the game 3-for-5 with two runs batted in but was pulled in the early innings of Saturday's loss and saw only pinch-hitting action in Sunday's game. Turner is still battling a nagging hamstring injury.
Senior lefthander Justin Pigott pitched five solid innings and had nine strikeouts while giving up just five hits. John Lalor, Forrest Moore and Andy Wilson kept the Ospreys' bats cold to pull off the win.
North Florida head coach Dusty Rhodes said he was disappointed his team's bats never really came alive in the game.
"We made some mistakes tonight. We have a lot of young guys," Rhodes said. "I'm disappointed that we didn't make more contact at the plate. But this is what we're going to have to do to build our program. I could easily have scheduled somebody easy, but I don't want to do that."
On Saturday, the Dawgs came out on the wrong end of a slugfest as they suffered their first loss of the season in a 17-9 defeat.
The Dawgs' bats came out strong in the early innings as they scored two runs in the first inning, one each in the second and third and five in the fourth. Third baseman Conner Powers belted a two-run homer to right field to open up the game, and Turner had a two-run single in the fourth before being pulled.
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