St. John's baseball falls to second place in Big East Conference

The St. John's baseball team did not experience a pleasant Mother's Day Sunday afternoon. Not only did they lose their weekend series to Creighton, but the Red Storm also lost the slim lead they enjoyed in the Big East Conference.

Creighton blasted St. John's 15-5 Sunday to win two of three games, taking the conference lead by a full game with three Big East contests left for each school. St. John's travels to Seton Hall Thursday to start a series while Creighton finishes the season in Cincinnati against Xavier.

St. John's also faces St. Peters on Tuesday, while Creighton has Stephen F. Austin and Nebraska at home on Tuesday.

St. John's actually tasted defeat twice Sunday as the schools finished Saturday's game, which was suspended due to inclement weather. The Red Storm let leads slip away in the seventh and ninth innings before losing 13-11.

Creighton's Mike Gerber paced the offensive attack in the rubber game with three hits, including two homers, and six RBI. The centerfielder hit a two-run bomb in the first to give the Blue Jays a 2-0 lead. He hit another two-run homer in the third to push the lead to 5-2. Creighton scored twice more in the inning and eventually put a seven-spot on the board in the eighth to erase any hope of a Red Storm comeback.

Chris Kalica (6-2) had one of his worst starts of the year and couldn't record an out in the third inning before being lifted. He allowed seven runs, six earned, on seven hits one walk.

Bret Dennis and Michael Donadio paced the St. John's offense in the losing effort. Dennis finished with three hits with two runs scored while Donadio added two hits and two RBI. Zach Lauricella also collected three hits.

St. John's started the weekend on the right path with a 6-5 win to extend their conference winning streak to 10 games.

Robert Wayman broke a 5-5 tie in the eighth inning with an RBI single that capped a two-out rally.

Robbie Knightes singled to left field to start the inning but was gunned down at second trying to extend the hit into a double. Tyler Sanchez flied out to center for the second out. Alex Caruso and Troy Dixon then walked before Wayman stroked a single up the middle to plate the go-ahead run.

James Lomangino started the game for the Red Storm and allowed four runs, three earned, on eight hits with two walks and six strikeouts.

Joe Kuzia walked two Blue Jays in the ninth before he recorded his 12th save of the year.

If St. John's does lose the regular season conference title to Creighton, it might look back at the suspended game and think about what could've been after blowing two late leads.

St. John's scored four runs in the sixth inning to take a 9-5. Creighton stormed right back in the seventh with five runs to lead 10-9.

Caruso tied the game in the bottom of the inning with an RBI single.

Lauricella hit an RBI double in the eighth to give St. John's a brief 11-10.

Then something happened in the ninth inning that hadn't happened all season: Kuzia surrendered his first earned runs of the season.

Jake Peter hit a three-run homer off Kuzia to essentially secure the win.

Current Big East baseball standings:

[Sortable table below]