Ex-Rivals Combine Forces on Field

Maybe world peace is possible.

Players who attended rival colleges Miami and Florida State combined their best efforts of the young season to lead the Lancaster JetHawks to a 15-8 victory over the San Bernardino Stampede on Friday night before 3,703 at the Hangar.

Right-hander Eric Morgan, a former Hurricane, pitched six strong innings and utility man Mike Martin, a former Seminole, had four hits, lifting the JetHawks (6-3) to a three-game sweep of the Stampede.

Morgan, a 24-year-old right-hander who had been in the bullpen for most of his injury-plagued first three seasons of pro baseball, showed why the Seattle Mariners made him a starter.

He pitched six innings with only 81 pitches, giving up one run and four hits and striking out three. He needed 11 pitches or fewer to retire the Stampede in four innings.

Morgan’s most impressive inning was the fifth, when he gave up a leadoff triple to Kevin Faircloth, but stranded him after getting a popup, a strikeout and a groundout.

The JetHawks’ 15-hit attack was led by Martin, who so far doesn’t look like the guy whose stats are under his biography in the Mariner media guide. Martin, a .180 hitter in 333 pro at-bats coming into this season, has eight hits in 15 at-bats in Lancaster.

Shawn Buhner added two hits, including a home run against Jeff Kubenka, the Stampede’s screwball-throwing bullpen ace, who was just getting in some work.

The JetHawks did most of their damage against a pitcher rehabilitating from shoulder surgery (Rick Gorecki) and another who is a converted infielder experimenting with a knuckleball (Lance Backowski).

Gorecki, once one of the Dodgers’ top prospects, was on a 45-pitch limit, and he needed 40 of those in his first and only inning. The JetHawks pounded Gorecki for four runs.

They led in the sixth, 6-1, when Backowski entered for the Stampede. Three of the first four batters he faced got hits, driving in two runs. In the seventh, five of the first six he faced reached base before Backowski was pulled.

Backowski was charged with seven runs in 1 1/3 innings.