by Vinny Messana
Trailing 3-2 entering the bottom of the 11th, the Hofstra Pride knew they needed a comeback against a 21-win Charleston team if they had any hopes staying in the CAA race.
Brad Witkowski drew a walk on a 3-2 pitch and Nick Bottari reached on a fielder’s choice to bring up David Leiderman.
The redshirt junior, who won the 2012 Diamond Award, smacked a walk-off home run–his fourth HR of the season–to score Bottari and send the Pride into a frenzy.
Freshman Andrew Mundy, who threw two innings of relief, recorded his first college win.
“It felt great to be able to screw up in the top of that inning and come out with the win,” said Mundy. “It just proves the determination of my team to get a win and the need to turn this season around. Overall, I can’t contribute that to myself, that’s my teammates hard work and clutch performance,” he added.
Mundy threw well in relief of sophomore Chris Weiss, who was outstanding. Weiss, who was the second baseman and reliever for the Pride last year had his best outing of the season. He went 9 innings, allowing two ER on six hits and four walks while striking out seven.
Coach John Russo noted that his slider was a weapon today, which allowed him to get some swings and misses.
The Pride had trouble getting anything going against Charleston’s starter Nathan Helvey. He is among the top starters in the conference–already having logged 63.0 IP with a 2.57 ERA.
Leiderman was the only Pride bat with two hits. Steven Foster stayed hot and extended his hitting streaking to eight games. After a slow start, he is up to .297 on the season with 38 hits, 24 runs and a fantastic .442 OBP.
The Pride improve to 10-24 overall on the season but 2-7 in conference play. They will be back at it tomorrow at 1pm as they look to right this into a hot streak.
You can read a scouting report on Leiderman by clicking here
