On Sunday, Rutgers baseball (3-0) closed out a three-game sweep with a 7-6 extra-inning victory against Winthrop (0-3) to start the 2024 season.
The Scarlet Knights kicked off their season on Friday with a 14-5 victory in Rock Hill, South Carolina, to capture their first victory of the season. Rutgers carried that momentum into Saturday with a 3-1 win over the Eagles.
Sunday’s matchup wasn’t an easy one for the Scarlet Knights as they saw a 6-4 lead erased in the eighth inning but were able to push across a run and keep the Eagles off the scoreboard in the final three frames.
The Scarlet Knights jumped out to a 5-0 lead in the fourth inning, but the Eagles climbed back with three runs in the bottom of the frame. Winthrop would tie the back in the bottom of the eighth inning, but Rutgers continued to rely on its bullpen depth to carry them. Rutgers grabbed the lead in the 11th inning with an RBI single by Johnny Volpe.
It’s been 1 year and 8 months since Gavin Stellpflug pitched in a college baseball game.
He just locked down the save in the 11th inning of a 7-6 game to complete the opening weekend sweep.
Safe to say the boys were fired up.#TCD pic.twitter.com/wSS5ZSFi4e
— Rutgers Baseball (@RutgersBaseball) February 19, 2024
Making his Rutgers debut after not pitching in 2023, Rutgers called upon closer Gavin Stellpflug to lock down the victory. Stellpflug worked around a one-out error and got a strikeout and groundout to earn the save and finish off the sweep.
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Volpe and Rutgers infielder Josh Kuroda-Grauer carried the bats for the Scarlet Knights, combining for eight RBIs and seven hits throughout the series.
Rutgers baseball returns to action against Old Dominion with a three-game series starting on Friday in Norfolk, Virginia.
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