Oak Lawn, IL (April 9, 2013) - After suffering a hard-luck extra-inning loss to Oak Lawn on Monday 5-4, the Rams rebounded on Tuesday to beat the Spartans 4-2 behind the pitching of Belal Abuzir. The junior left-hander threw a complete game, allowing no earned runs on three hits. He walked three and struck out six. "Belal came up big for us today," said Coach Erickson. "We needed a win today after dropping our first conference game yesterday the way we did and Belal put the team on his shoulders."
Reavis (6-4; 1-1) jumped out to an early lead when they scored two runs in the top of the second inning. After two quick outs, Jose Romero reached on a dropped third strike and John Deir (2 for 4; 2 2B) doubled Romero to third. Jake Aguilar (2 for 3; 3 RBI) then singled home both runners.
Deir and Aguilar provided more offense in the fourth when their back-to-back doubles increased the Rams' lead to 3-0. Reavis added a run in the fifth inning on Richie Velez's single up the middle that plated Joe O'Hara.
Oak Lawn threatened in the sixth scoring two runs when three consecutive Startans reached base via the bunt, and they had an opportunity to tie the game with runners on second and third with only one out. However, Abuzir struck out the Spartan three hitter, Bob Kametas, and got Thome to ground out to Aguilar at third to end the threat. Abuzir then worked a 1-2-3 seventh inning to preserve the complete game victory.
The Rams take on Shepard at Czarnecki Field on Wednesday.