HANOVER, Md.  —  The Catholic baseball team came into Sunday's game against Wilkes looking to salvage the third game of the series against the Colonels. Sam Fairhurst was brilliant on the mound for the Cardinals, setting a Landmark Conference record for strikeouts in a conference game with 17 over 8.1 innings, to lead Catholic to a convincing 9-0 win in the series finale.

The Cardinals brought in the first run of the game in the bottom of the first inning after Sammy Burman got himself into scoring position with a one-out double into center field and Mitchel Johnson moved him over to third with a fly out into deep center field. Dante Pozzi continued his hot spell with runners on base, placing a ball in between shortstop and third to leg out an infield single to put Catholic up 1-0. 

Fairhurst was lights out throughout his start, but his best stretch came between the third and sixth innings when he struck out eight Colonels in a row, including striking out the side in back-to-back innings, to pick up a bulk of his punch outs on the afternoon. 

A lead-off walk from Jack Bateman and a Chase Falcon double put two in scoring position with nobody out in the top of the fifth. Steve Thomas lifted a sacrifice fly into center field to bring Bateman in to extend the lead to 2-0.

The Cardinals took control of the game from the sixth through eighth innings scoring seven runs to push the lead out to a comfortable 9-0 cushion. Falcon came up with a key two-run single in the top of the sixth to pick up his first two RBI of the season. Pozzi added another RBI to his tally with a double down the left field line in the seventh and eventually came in to score on a wild pitch to cap off a three run inning for Catholic. Burman and Johnson both recorded extra-base hits in the bottom of the eighth to get the run total up to nine. 

After Fairhurst recorded the first out of the ninth, Lucky Perrotto came in to get the final two outs of the game to lock down the Cardinals 13th win of the season.

Inside the Box Score

• Fairhurst passed Moravian's Brendan Close for the strikeout record in a Landmark game, who had 16 against Scranton in 2011. His 17 strikeouts are the most from a Catholic pitcher in the team's era in the Landmark Conference (2008-pres.).
• Pozzi's two RBI brought his season total to 24 which is the second most on the team thus far this season. Over the past two weeks of play, Pozzi has driven in 17 runs over 10 games played.
• Falcon led the Cardinals in hits, going 3-for-4 with a double and two runs driven in. His three hits and two RBI were both career-highs for the sophomore.

Next up for Catholic is a stand-alone game against Elizabethtown on Tuesday, April 1 to wrap up the season series with the Blue Jays. First pitch is slated for 3:30 pm at Kevin Scott Boyd Memorial Stadium.