Junior Right-hander Vinnie Birk pitched seven strong innings to lead the Blackburn College Baseball Team to a 6-3 St. Louis Intercollegiate Athletic Conference victory over Fontbonne University on Friday afternoon in Carlinville. Birk struck out six Griffins while only walking one to pick up his first victory of the season.
Birk started the scoring by leading off with a walk in the bottom of the first, he advanced to second on a wild pickoff throw to first, then moved up to third on a Cody Flowers groundout and scored on a wild pitch. The Beavers took a 2-0 lead in the third as Flowers doubled, Donny Fuhrhop singled Flowers to third and Flowers scored on a Matt Mokriakow sacrifice fly. After the Griffins notched a run in the 4th the Beavers rallied in the bottom half with a four-run inning. RBI hits by Franklin Bush, Birk, Doug Matas and Mokriakow tallied the runs.
The Griffins scored two in the sixth to narrow the lead to 6-3. Birk then got out of a bases loaded jam in the seventh by striking out Alex Roedner to keep the Beavers lead. Birk's day on the mound was done as he finished with 111 pitches. Caleb Schupbach pitched a 3 up 3 down 8th and Tyler Gosnell pitched a scoreless 9th to notch his second save of the year. Blackburn will continue the series tomorrow with a doubleheader at Shaw Park in Clayton, Missouri with the first pitch scheduled for 1:00 p.m.