Baseball | 3/18/2012 3:07:00 PM
Box Score
March 18, 2012 -- The #21 Emporia State baseball team used five home runs to propel themselves to a 15-2 win over Pittsburg State. The Hornets pulled out the series split with the Gorillas in a seven inning run rule victory.
ESU fell behind early as Pittsburg State plated the first run of the game in the top of the first inning. The Hornets would answer in the bottom half of the inning as Joe Kornbrust would double in a run to tie the game up at one run apiece.
The game would stay tied until the fourth inning when Kornbrust led off the inning with a solo home run and Joe Hosey added a two RBI double as ESU built a 5-1 lead. Pittsburg State would get their final hit off Matt Robertson in the fourth inning as they used a lead off double to cut the ESU lead to 5-2. The Hornets would answer in the bottom half of the fourth inning as Kornbrust hit his second solo home run of the game to give ESU the 6-2 advantage. The Hornet bats would then explode in the bottom of the fifth inning as 12 ESU hitters came to the plate. Joe Vaskas started the off the scoring with a two run home run. It would be followed a little later by Kornbrust's third home run of a game, this time a grand slam. Vaskas would then plate two more Hornets with his second home run of the inning to give the Hornets a 15-2 edge.
Kornbrust would finish four for four on the day with a career high seven runs batted in just one game after seeing a 15 game hitting streak come to an end. Vaskas was three for three on the afternoon with four runs driven in and three runs scored. Rudy Weiser went two for four with one run driven in and one run scored. Joe Hosey finished two for three with two runs batted in and a run scored. Ashton McCoy was two for five and added two runs scored for ESU. Dorain Williams also scored two runs and added a run batted in for ESU. Eric Dawson, Blake Brisson and Zack Carlson also added runs scored as every Hornet in the starting line-up finished with a hit and atleast one run scored.
On the mound Matt Robertson made his first start in almost a year and a half throwing a complete game five hitter. Robertson allowed just one earned run while striking out five and walking only one.
The Hornets will return to action next weekend when Truman comes to town on March 23-25 for a four game series from Glennen Field in the Trusler Sports Complex.
Notes:
Joe's Kornbrust and Vaskas are tied for the team lead with five home runs apiece
Joe Kornbrust hit four home runs and added 10 runs batted in during the weekend series with Pittsburg State
The Hornets were seven of seven on stolen base attempts for the weekend led by Eric Dawson and Blake Brisson who each stole two bases
The Hornets hit eight home runs in the series after having only hit eight long balls in their previous 13 games
Kornbrust leads the team with 23 runs driven in this season
