Junior Nick Christiani earned his place in the starting pitchers rotation Tuesday night as he dominated the Western Kentucky Hilltoppers (18-12) well into the seventh inning, allowing no earned runs in his duration on the mound.
Vanderbilt (20-10, 5-6 Southeastern Conference) controlled the offense in the first of two midweek non-conference games at Hawkins Field last night. Despite only scoring five runs, they recorded twelve hits with no errors and advanced runners into scoring position in all but one inning.
Christiani was the starting pitcher for Vanderbilt, and put in nearly seven innings of solid work, keeping WKU to one unearned run off of five hits and limiting their recent winning streak to three.
WKU scored their one run during Christiani’s only hiccup in the fourth, when he walked or hit three batsmen in a row to score a run and load the bases. Luckily he cleaned up on outfielder Scott Kaskie to end the inning without much damage. He resumed the domination after the fourth as he recorded three strikeouts and only allowed two more hits before being relieved in the seventh to a standing ovation.
The Hilltoppers were lucky to escape the fifth only down by two. Junior Pedro Alvarez’s hard hit drive was barely caught by the WKU shortstop, and junior Ryan Flaherty was thrown out at home base trying to sneak in on a Dominic de la Osa triple. The Dores kept pushing throughout the inning and de la Osa, a senior, managed to steal home right under the catcher’s nose for Vanderbilt’s third run.
Vanderbilt put together another great offensive inning in the seventh, but ended up stranding three runners and only scoring one run.
This was the story for most of the game as Vanderbilt consistently got players into scoring position but had trouble bringing most of them home. There were no home runs and only one long ball that got behind the Western Kentucky outfielders. If Vanderbilt had been able to show a little more power, the score would have been much higher. It would have been nice to see another 435-foot homer from Alvarez, but it was not to be repeated tonight. Alvarez went 0-5 before finally hitting a single in the eighth. With seniors Alex Feinberg and Shea Robin out of the lineup this game, Vanderbilt missed some of its stronger hitters on Tuesday, but still showed impressive efficiency in getting people in position to make things happen.
Senior David Macias was the driving force behind Vanderbilt’s offense, going four for five and scoring one run himself. De la Osa also had a very productive night, collecting three hits, including a triple, and one RBI.
The great pitching begun by Christiani was continued by redshirt freshman reliever Richie Goodenow, who struck out the only batter he saw. Sophomore Drew Hayes came in to close the game in the eighth and blanketed the Hilltoppers, giving up only one hit while striking out four, including Hightower in the ninth to end the game.
The Commodores will not get much rest this week. The boys play Austin Peay tomorrow night, and will travel back to the state of Mississippi this weekend to face Mississippi State in a three-game series, hoping to regain a winning record in the SEC.
