Following the high of a 13-inning walk-off two-run home run from USC Upstate transfer Vance Sheahan on Tuesday night, Miami put together a complete showing to take down Indiana State 6-2 on Wednesday evening at Mark Light Field.
Freshman left-hander Sebastian Santos-Olson made his first career start. The Port Chester, N.Y. native went 4.2 innings, struck out six batters, and gave up two runs on five hits.
Indiana State chose to use an opener in Wednesday’s night matchup, deploying Ty Brooks to throw a scoreless two innings of work before being taken out of the ballgame.
The Hurricanes struck first in the fourth. Sophomore Mikey Torres stood on third while Alex Sosa stood on second. The scorching hot bat of Derek Williams, hit a sac-fly to score Torres and advanced Sosa to third.
A batter later, freshman catcher Alonzo Alvarez hit his fourth double in less than a week that landed Sosa on home, giving the Canes a 2-0 lead.
Indiana State’s two-out rally propelled them to tie the game in the top of the fifth. With Jorge Cartagena standing on second after a walk and a stolen base, Emil Estrella doubled to right field.
Third baseman Nick Sutherland then roped a ball up the middle that allowed Estrella to touch home. The score was tied at two through five innings.
Senior pitcher Rob Evans made his first appearance of the season out of the bullpen, and was introduced to a handful of cheers and applause. Despite giving up a hit and a walk, Evans got out of his inning if work cleanly
Alvarez continued to shine in the batters box, slamming a home run to left field to give Miami the 3-2 advantage in the seventh.
UM added insurance runs in the bottom of the eighth. On an 0-1 count, junior slugger Daniel Cuvet hit a ball in the right field gap to score Torres from first.
Williams followed up Cuvet by hitting a blistering line drive over the left field fence to push the score to 6-2.
The Sycamores used three pitchers in the eighth inning and eight total in their 6-2 loss.
On the Hurricanes side of the ‘pen, Lazaro Collera pitched an inning which could shake up the weekend rotation as he started against Lehigh last Saturday.
Richmond transfer Ryan Bilka came into the ninth inning and struck out two out of his three batters faced to end the game.
Miami (5-0) will look to keep the winning spirits alive as it will start a four-game series against the Lafayette Leopards. First pitch at Mark Light Field is set for 7 p.m. on Friday.