June 3, 2005

Final Stats |  Notes

Florida Atlantic University dropped its first game at the NCAA Baseball Regional to Mississippi State 13-2 on Friday afternoon. Six home runs in the contest accounted for 11 of the 15 combined runs. Florida Atlantic falls to 36-23 while Mississippi State improves to 41-20.

The Bulldogs jumped on FAU starting pitcher Chris Salberg for seven runs in the first 2 2/3 innings. Six of the runs came off of the bat of Brad Corley. The right fielder hit two three-run homers off of the left-hander and finished the afternoon 2-for-4 at the plate with six RBI.

Salberg drops to 6-5 after he allowed five hits and three walks in his 15th start of the season.

Andrew Tomlin, Chris Eberhart, Mark Culp and Jason Doherty each worked out of the bullpen for FAU. The pitching staff gave up five home runs to MSU while the FAU offense only picked up six hits.

Jonathon Shapland led the way for Florida Atlantic and his two-run home run put FAU on the board in the sixth inning.

Alan Johnson pitched a complete game for Mississippi State to improve to 5-6. He allowed two runs on six hits and struck out six.

"Johnson pitched extremely well against us. We only got six hits and it is tough to win when you do that, especially when the other team is doing so well," said FAU head coach Kevin Cooney. Corley's two home runs put us in a hole early and we had to fight back and Johnson was the guy that had to stop us from doing that and I thought he did a tremendous job."

FAU will face the loser of the Miami/Virginia Commonwealth game on Saturday at 3 pm.