12/13/11- The Florida Christian College baseball team concluded their first ever fall program with the 1st Annual Orange and Black Fall Series as the team, divided into two squads, battled in a 3-game series. The Orange squad prevailed as they swept the series 4-3, 10-3 and 2-0. Head Coach, Jon Copeland, was pleased with the effort and skill evident in the series, and with the fall program in general, “The coaching staff was excited with the progress and cohesion of the players and the program this fall. Considering it was the program’s first fall, things went very well. The concluding series highlighted some great talent for us and allowed the players to finish off the fall season on a very competitive note”.

Game 1 of the series proved to be a pitching duel between the Black squad’s Bryan Ortiz, a sophomore, and freshman Eric Santamaria for Orange. Team Orange prevailed in a hotly contested battle that went down to the wire as they came back from 3-1 deficit to pull out a squeaker. Orange took advantage of two costly errors in Game 2 to take a commanding lead and, behind the pitching of freshman Kyle Harding and Justin Pereira, held off Team Black. Orange finished the sweep in Game 3 as sophomore Nick Beavers tossed a complete game masterpiece and out dueled freshman Brent Hodge. The series saw several top performers at the plate including John Melito, Mark Vidal, Carlos Guzman, Erik Figueroa, Kevin Gonzalez and Harry Amadeo.

“The series highlighted, once again, that we have a very competitive group of players who love playing the game of baseball, and who work hard at bettering themselves on the field”, stated Copeland. “Our fall scrimmage season in competition with programs like Polk State, Lake Sumter CC and St. Petersburg CC was a real plus for us. It gave the players a chance to see how they measured up against top level competition and what we need to work on for the regular season coming up.”

The inaugural season for the Suns Baseball program begins on Friday, January 27th at 3pm when FCC hosts Point University in the first game of a three-game series with Point University (formerly Atlanta Christian College) at the Houston Astros Spring Training Complex, one of the two official home fields for Suns Baseball, located across the street from the FCC campus.