Miami Hurricanes baseball crushes neighboring FIU Panthers with offensive onslaught
Miami Hurricanes baseball was not very neighborly to the FIU Panthers on Wednesday night, traveling less than 10 miles to FIU Baseball Stadium, then clobbering the Panthers 21-1.
The No. 20 Hurricanes (13-8, 7-7 Atlantic Coast Conference) left no doubt from the beginning, starting the game with a leadoff home run to left field by sophomore Jordan Lala.
After Lala struck out swinging with bases loaded to end UM’s second-inning threat, the Panthers (9-13, 1-3 C-USA) replaced right-handed starter Jermaine Vanheyningen with righty Everett Hurst to start the third. But that worked out worse.
UM was back on the scoreboard with six hits, five of them in a row to begin the inning. They included back-to-back RBI-doubles by Yohandy Morales and Adrian Del Castillo after Anthony Vilar opened the inning with a single to center. Christian Del Castillo singled up the middle to drive home his younger brother Adrian and make it 4-0, and Alex Toral doubled to left-center to bring home Christian for a 5-0 UM lead. Dominic Pitelli’s double then drove home Toral for UM’s sixth run.
After that, it was all but over for the Panthers. The Canes (19 hits) scored two more in the fourth, six in the fifth, four in the sixth, one in the seventh and two in the ninth to complete the rout. FIU had six hits and made five errors.
Thirteen Hurricanes recorded at least one hit, with six Canes registering two hits.
The last time UM scored at least 21 runs was in a 21-3 win against Columbia in the postseason on June 1, 2015. According to the ESPN-plus broadcast, the Canes scored a program-high 33 runs in a shutout of C.W. Post on March 5, 2000.
Right-handed freshman Jake Garland (4-1) earned the win by allowing five hits and no walks in six innings. He struck out three Panthers and left the game with a 19-0 lead.
FIU’s Vanheyningen (0-1), one of eight Panthers pitchers, took the loss.
The teams meet again April 7 at the Hurricanes’ Mark Light Field.
UM faces ACC member Duke in a three-game weekend series that begins 7 p.m Friday at The Light.
This story was originally published March 31, 2021 at 10:30 PM.
