Dayton Flyers

RICHMOND, Va. – Mike Hauschild threw his third complete-game of the season as Dayton won the opening of a three-game series at Richmond, 5-3, at Pitt Field on Friday evening.

Dayton improves to 20-23 and 9-4 in league play – good for second place in the Atlantic 10 – as Richmond falls to 20-18 and 7-6.

Hauschild (6-1) threw 8 2/3 innings of shutout baseball until a three homerun from a pinch-hitting Bret Williams scored the Spiders’ only runs of the day. Hauschild struck out seven with just one walk in 121 pitches.

“You take away that homerun in the ninth, I thought that was the best game that Hauschild has pitched since he has been a Flyer,” Head Coach Tony Vittorio said. “He had their hitters off balance – a lot of ground-outs and fly-outs with a good share of strikeouts as well. He has given us a lot of good outings and this was one of the best.”

The Flyers jumped out to a three-run lead by the third inning and added two more insurance runs in the top of the ninth. Senior Bobby Glover and sophomore Robby Sunderman paced the Flyers at the plate. Sunderman scored two runs and reached base four times, as Glover knocked two hits with one RBI.

UD scored first in the second inning as senior C.J. Gillman reached base on an error to lead off the inning. Gillman eventually scored on an RBI single from Zach Stewart for a 1-0 lead.

Gillman also stole a base in the second inning, which eclipsed the previous team stolen bases program record of 121 set last season. Gillman finished with two steals on Friday, helping UD to reach a new program-record of 125 steals with 13 regular season games remaining.

“You are not going to hear me get too excited about (stolen bases) yet because our goal going into the season was to lead the country in stolen bases at the end of the season,” Vittorio said. “Right now, there are a couple teams on our tail so we are going to keep grinding. It has done a lot for our program the last couple of years to put guys in scoring position and keep opposing pitchers off balance, but we are not done yet.”

The three-game series continues tomorrow at 2 p.m. ET at Pitt Field.