No. 11 Florida Tech Gets Crushed By No. 25 St. Leo 15-4

By  //  March 14, 2015

Panthers surrendered 18 hits

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In a contest No. 11 Florida Tech will soon want to forget, the Panthers surrendered 18 hits and committed a season-high five errors on their way to an uncharacteristic 15-4 loss to No. 25 Saint Leo Friday evening. (Photo by Amanda Stratford Photography)

BREVARD COUNTY, FLORIDA – In a contest No. 11 Florida Tech will soon want to forget, the Panthers surrendered 18 hits and committed a season-high five errors on their way to an uncharacteristic 15-4 loss to No. 25 Saint Leo Friday evening.

“We played poorly tonight,” said head coach Greg Berkemeier.

“At the same time, don’t take anything away from Saint Leo. They executed, swung the bats well and took advantage of our mistakes. We need to do a much better job of playing routine baseball. We didn’t play particularly well, but it happens.”

Ashton Fronsoe
Ashton Fronsoe

Right-hander Ashton Fronsoe received his first loss of the season after allowing seven earned runs in four-plus innings, but it was the costly mistakes that added to the rough outing.

The end result was unexpected after the Panthers got off to an encouraging start in the top half of the first inning.

Making his season debut atop the Panther batting order, center fielder Kevin Wortman legged out an infield single to third base to leadoff the contest.

The very next at-bat, Reid Neal tagged a single to center, and Wortman came around to score on a misplayed ball in the outfield to give Florida Tech the instant 1-0 advantage.

The Panthers led 2-1 entering the bottom of the second before the wheels already started to come off. Saint Leo opened the frame with consecutive hits before Florida Tech followed with a fielding error, wild pitch, throwing error and a plunked batter.

Ten batters and six runs later, the Panthers had spotted Saint Leo a 7-2 lead they would never recover from.

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Just three days removed from his first career start, Tim Whalen tossed four strong innings in relief, permitting a pair of hits and one earned run while fanning four.

Despite the loss, the Panthers managed to record double-digit hits with 11, including a 3-for-5 effort from Wortman.

FIT and Saint Leo will meet again on Saturday at Thomas B. Southard Stadium in a doubleheader beginning at 1 p.m.

Live video, audio and stats will be available, courtesy of Saint Leo, at FloridaTechSports.com