JMU OPENS HOME STAND WITH 13-2 POUNDING OF LIBERTY

Tuesday, March 16

Harrisonburg, Va.

4:00 PM

James Madison University

5-8

Liberty

11-3

Liberty

James Madison

3/16/2010 11:00:00 PM | Baseball

Box Score

HARRISONBURG, Va., March 16, 2010 - Redshirt senior Jason Kuhn (Stafford, Va./Brooke Point) pitched seven strong innings and James Madison's offense pounded 16 hits to record a 13-2 victory over Liberty on Tuesday afternoon at Veterans Memorial Park.

JMU head coach Spanky McFarland commented on the win, "It starts on the mound, I thought Jason Kuhn did a nice job. He was pitching real hard and changing his speed. They always have a good hitting club; we put him out there today to mess them up a little bit. They're used to seeing guys who throw harder. So he did a nice job of it and the defense behind him did well. Basically we scored one in three straight innings and then we had that big inning in the fifth to kind of put it away and that's what good teams do. So hopefully we can learn from that and continue to play that kind of baseball."

JMU picked up its second win in the last six games to improve to 5-8 on the season. Liberty dropped to 11-3 overall. It was the eighth straight win for the Dukes over the Flames.

Kuhn turned in one of his best pitching performances at JMU with a career-high seven innings allowing one run on five hits with three strikeouts. Freshman Nick Slogik (Strongsville, Ohio/St. Edward) went the final two frames allowing one run on two hits.

McFarland was pleased with the big starting effort by Kuhn, adding, "Today was probably his best game. He's shown it in bits and pieces, but this is the first time he's ever started and done something like that. I didn't want to say anything right before the game, just because I didn't want to make him even more nervous, but I felt like we really needed this. We needed to get by with a couple pitchers today in order to rest guys and have guys for tomorrow. And we've got conference games starting this weekend. That was a hard trip in Florida; we got tired and beat up, so today was huge."

Cameron Giannini took the loss for Liberty after allowing seven runs, six earned, on seven hits with eight strikeouts in 4 1/3 innings.

JMU received a strong outing from a pair of freshmen. Center fielder Johnny Bladel (Ashburn, Va./Stone Bridge) had a career-best four hits in five at bats with three runs, a stolen base, and an RBI. Left fielder Matt Tenaglia (Doylestown, Pa./Central Bucks East) had career highs of three hits, three runs, and four RBIs with a triple.

McFarland stated of the effort by the youngsters, "Both of those guys are good ball players. They're young, they're fresh, and Florida didn't bother them a bit. Some of our seniors are limping around from Florida. They [Bladel and Tenaglia] are doing a good job."

Two other Dukes had big days at the plate as part of the 16-hit outburst. Senior Matt Browning (Mystic, Conn./Fitch) raised his batting average to .440 after going 3-for-4 with a double, a walk, and three runs scored. Redshirt senior right fielder Matt Townsend (Lorton, Va./Hayfield) was 2-for-4 with a double, two runs, a walk, and three RBIs.

Seven different players had one hit each for Liberty. Trey Wimmer drove in a run with a double and catcher Jerry Neufang singled in a run in the ninth.

JMU scored first in the first inning as Bladel led off with a single. Redshirt senior designated hitter Brett Garner (Burke, Va./Lake Braddock) bunted him into scoring position and Bladel scored on a single through the right side by Browning for the 1-0 lead.

In the second, JMU loaded the bases on a pair of one-out singles and an error.&n