March 7, 2000

Jacksonville, Fla. - Jacksonville improved to 13-5 with a 12-1 victory over St. John's (3-4) at Alexander Brest Field Tuesday afternoon. The victory was the fourth straight for the Dolphins and eighth out of their last nine games.

Sophomore Bryan Williams (Winter Park, Fla.) made a successful return to the Dolphins' pitching rotation after being sidelined with an injury the past three weeks. Williams (1-1), the Dolphins' top returning starter from last year, allowed just three hits and walked one in 4.0 innings of restricted work in picking up his first victory of the season. After giving up a single run in the first, the JU offense gave Williams a comfortable working margin by scoring eight in the bottom half of the inning. Sophomore Chad Oliva (Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.), junior Bret Catto (Jacksonville, Fla.) and senior Josh Hurrell (Lincoln, Neb.) picked up RBI in the inning for JU, Oliva extending his hitting streak to 11 games.

Jacksonville scored another run in the second on Oliva's second RBI single of the game, making the score 9-1 in favor of the Dolphins. Williams held the Red Storm scoreless through the top of the fourth, retiring nine of the last 10 batters he faced before leaving due to a preset pitch-count. Freshman Josh Nichols (Starke, Fla.) took over where Williams left off, allowing just one hit while striking out one in two innings of work. The Dolphins offense once again came to life in the bottom of the sixth as JU scored three times, two runs coming on a two-run home run by Chad Hauseman (1) to left. The home run was the first collegiate home run for the freshman from Pottstown, Penn.

Classmate Casey Shumaker (Jacksonville, Fla.) took over on the mound for Nichols in the seventh, pitching two scoreless innings before leaving the game in favor of junior Josh Khoury (Indianapolis, Ind.). Khoury pitched a hitless ninth for the Dolphins as the JU bull pen allowed just two hits and no runs in 5.0 innings of work.

The Dolphins were once again led offensively by Oliva who collected four hits in four at-bats. Oliva is now 11-13 over the last three games for JU with nine RBI. Hauseman and senior John Vollstedt (Jacksonville, Fla.) were the only other Dolphins with multiple hits, each collecting two hits in three at-bats. Vollstedt (9) also added two steals in the game, while sophomore Troy Veleber (Jacksonville, Fla.) recorded his 14th steal of the season.

Jacksonville will return to action on Friday, March 10th at 6:00 PM when they open Trans America Athletic Conference play at Troy State in Troy, Ala. The Dolphins and Trojans will play a single game on Friday night and two seven inning games on Saturday afternoon beginning at 1:00 PM. Results will be available immediately following the game on the Dolphin sports hot-line at 904-366-8445 and on the web on Monday morning.