ST. BONAVENTURE, N.Y. – The St. Bonaventure baseball team picked up a convincing 11-2 win over Canisius in a midweek matchup on a sunny afternoon Wednesday at Fred Handler Park.

The Bonnies' win was a group effort on both sides of the ball. Seven different batters recorded an RBI for the SBU offense, and five different pitchers took the mound.

Bona's struck first in the bottom of the third inning. 

Joey Bruno kick-started the Bonnies attack with a single to lead off the inning. After a walk by Chris Hoalcraft, Anthony Fernandez hit the ball through the right side to bring home the Bonnies' first run. Antonio Cordeiro then laced a double to left field, giving St. Bonaventure a 2-0 lead.

Canisius responded in the top of the fourth to even the score.

After the first three batters of the inning reached to load the bases, the Golden Griffins brought the first run home on a hit batter. The next batter for Canisius grounded into a double play, bringing another run home. The Bonnies then forced a groundout to get out of the inning with the game tied at two. 

SBU took the lead back in the bottom of the fourth.

The Bonnies loaded the bases with two outs thanks to two walks and a hit batter. Manuel Castro then launched a fly ball over the right fielder's head and off the fence, clearing the bases and leaving him standing on third with a triple and a 5-2 lead.

Bonaventure continued to build their lead in the fifth inning with a two-out rally.

The Bonnies drew three straight walks while down to their final out in the inning. Bruno followed with a single up the middle, bringing two runners home.

In the sixth, St. Bonaventure extended their lead further.

The Bonnies led off the inning with singles from Hoalcraft and Fernandez. The first run of the inning came off the bat of Cordeiro, who hit a ground ball to second that was mishandled by the Golden Griffins. After Christian LaMothe walked to load the bases, Ashton Ross brought home another run on a fielder's choice. Joey Calabretti followed with an RBI single to left center, making it a 10-2 ballgame.

St. Bonaventure added one more run in the eighth and shut down the Golden Griffins in the ninth to clinch the win.

Derek Duval toed the rubber for the Bonnies to start the game. Over three scoreless innings, Duval allowed only two hits and struck out two. Mark Holm recorded a 1-2-3 inning in relief, and Ryan Kucy and Joey Calabretti each threw two full scoreless innings out of the Bonnies bullpen to help close the win.

Fernandez collected a team-best three hits while Bruno recorded two singles.

With the win, the Bonnies evened the all-time series with their Little Three rival Griffs to 57-57-3 dating back to 1954.

QUOTES FROM HEAD COACH JASON RATHBUN
"Great defensive effort today and our offense put a lot of runs on the board. There are a couple guys who pitched today who usually pitch on the weekends for us; Duval has been a good arm out of the bullpen, Joey Calabretti is a really good arm out of the bullpen for us and we wanted to bookend them today. It was about filling the middle innings; Holm and Kucy have been one-inning guys for us and Giblin is young and still learning. We were able to bridge it to Joey from Derek with those three guys and the plan worked out today.

"We've played a lot of close games and we've been looking for that break out day to pile runs on. Today we were able to get runners on and manufacture some runs."

UP NEXT
The Bonnies will travel to Davidson this weekend to continue their conference schedule. First pitch on Friday is set for 5 p.m.

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