Final Stats
TOLEDO, OH - Sophomore LHP Ryan France threw one-hit baseball over career-best eight innings and led Toledo to a 7-2 victory over Bowling Green in Sunday's series finale at Scott Park. France, whose previous long outing was six innings against IPFW on Apr. 25, 2006, allowed two unearned runs with five strikeouts to tally his first win of the season.
With today's victory, the Rockets improve to 16-13 overall and 7-5 in the Mid-American Conference. The Midnight Blue and Gold also won the series against its arch-rival for only the second time in the last nine seasons with wins in two of the three weekend meetings.
Offensively, UT finished with 11 hits and were paced by junior Drew Hoisington, sophomore Jake Oester and freshman Josh Johnson with two tallies apiece. Seven of Toledo's nine starters had a hit against five BGSU hurlers and six scored a run.
After three scoreless innings, Bowling Green (14-19, 2-10 MAC) jumped on the scoreboard first in the fourth with two runs on just one hit off France. The Falcons were aided by two of UT's season-high six errors in the frame to establish a two-run cushion.
The Rockets first quality scoring opportunity occured in the bottom of the four against BGSU starter Dusty Hawk (0-2), as they had the bases loaded with two outs, but Oester flew out to end the rally.
Two frames later, UT solved Hawk and scored three runs on the strength of five hits to send the Falcons pitcher to the showers and take a lead it would not surrender. Junior Scott Boley and sophomore Josh Colliver collected back-to-back singles with one out to begin the rally, before Johnson laced a double down the left field line to knot the score at 2-2. Junior Nate McKeon then hit the eventual game-winning, run-scoring single up the middle to give the home team its first advantage of the afternoon.
Toledo sealed the victory in the eighth with four insurance runs on a two-run double off the bat of junior Jake Swint and runs-scoring singles by senior Joel Visser and Oester.
UT senior RHP Joe Roberts came on in relief and tossed a perfect ninth frame to make the win official.
The Rockets return to action on Tuesday, April 17 when they travel to South Bend, IN to battle Notre Dame. The first pitch from Eck Stadium is slated for 6:05 p.m.
