Aaron Heilman (Logansport, Ind.) added several more milestones to his noteworthy career while fellow senior righthander Danny Tamayo (Miami, Fla.) continued to hold up his end of Notre Dame’s lethal 1-2 punch, as the second-ranked Irish baseball team pushed the nation’s longest active winning streak to 13 games with a BIG EAST doubleheader sweep (7-1, 15-2) of visiting Villanova in Saturday afternoon action at Eck Stadium.
Notre Dame (34-5-1, 14-2 BIG EAST) pounded out a season-high 20 hits in the nightcap but the big story again was the pitching of Heilman (10-0, 1.32 ERA) and Tamayo (6-1, 1.60)-who combined to allow two earned runs, five hits and two walks in 15 innings of work while striking out 14 Villanova batters. Heilman threw two-thirds of his pitches (62 of 94) for strikes while Tamayo hit the zone on 71 percent of his 89 pitches (64 for strikes).
Tamayo (6 Ks, 1 BB) was working on a no-hitter before yielding a solo home run by Rob Cafiero in the seventh inning of the second game, after Heilman had scattered four hits, one walk, eight Ks and nine groundouts over the seven-inning opener.
Heilman-whose 38-7 career record includes a 20-1 streak in his last 21 decisions- joined Florida International’s Wiilie Cordoza on Saturday as the nation’s first Division I pitchers to start 10-0 this season while becoming just the second Notre Dame pitcher-and first since Frank “Dreams” Scanlan in 1908-ever to win his first 10 decisions of a season.
Heilman and Tamayo now have teamed up in four BIG EAST doubleheaders this season, with the Irish owning a 52-6 scoring edge in those games while the pair has an 0.44 combined ERA in those eight games, plus 60 Ks, 10 walks and just 33 hits allowed in 61.2 innings.
Thursday’s 6-4 win over Central Michigan saw junior DH Ken Meyer hit a game-ending grand slam (after entering earlier as a pinch hitter) and Irish senior utility player Ben Cooke (Bay Village, Ohio) picked up where Meyer left off by making the most of his opportunities on Saturday, after entering the action in the third inning of the opening game-as a replacement for injured third baseman Andrew Bushey.
Cooke-who batted 4-for-7 in the two games-doubled in his first two at-bats of the day, the second coming with two outs in the fifth inning of a tense 2-1 game. That bases-clearing hit over the centerfielder’s head pushed the Irish margin to 5-1 and gave Heilman more than enough cushion to close out the game.
Junior centerfielder Steve Stanley (Upper Arlington, Ohio) then took center stage in the nightcap while completing a 6-for-9 day that represented more hits than Villanova’s total from the two games (5). Stanley led off the bottom of the first with his first career home run (in his 634th at-bat), driving a first-pitch offering from righthander Bob Grzenda into the gusting wind and over the rightfield fence. The speedy Stanley later added a triple and a single and was close to completing the unlikely cycle before grounding out to end the seventh inning.
Sophomore second baseman Steve Sollmann (.411) joined Stanley (.404) in pushing his season average back over .400, with the Cincinnati native batting 5-for-8 in the two games.
Villanova fell to 18-20-1 overall, 7-12 in the BIG EAST.
HEILMAN & TAMAYO NOTES: Heilman’s 2.49 career ERA (in 355 IP) now trails only Nick Palihnich (2.36 in 149 IP, 1959-61) in the ND record book while he is two wins shy of tying Tom Price’s ND career wins record (40-10, `91-’94) … his 1.32 season ERA would rank 4th in the ND ercord book (2nd since 1960) … Tamayo has won his last six decisions while his last six outings have produced 47 Ks and just 6 walks… the duo has combined for a 16-1 record and 1.45 season ERA.
TEAM NOTES: The 13-game win streak matches the longest of the seven-year Paul Mainieri era (also from April 8-23, 1998) … ND lowered its team ERA to 2.56 while boosting the team batting avg, to .322 (.299 last season) … ND’s starting pitchers have combined for a 1.95 ERA through 40 games … in the current 18-1 run, ND is batting .356 with 9.81 runs/gm and a 2.32 ERA.
BIG EAST NOTES: ND is followed in the race for the four BIG EAST Tournament spots by Seton Hall (12-6-1), St. John’s and Rutgers (both 12-7), UConn (11-8) and Virginia Tech (10-8-1) … ND leads the VU series 12-3 (8-1 in the last nine) … Heilman’s career stats vs. VU: 5 GP, 3-0, SV, 0.37, 24,1 IP, 26 Ks, 3 BB, 14 H … ND has won 16 of its last 17 BIG EAST series and 40 of 51 all-time (5 series ties, 6 losses) … ND has swept 28 of 49 all-time BIG EAST doubleheaders (18 splits, 3 opp .sweeps).
Villanova 0-0-1 0-0-0 0 – 1 4 1
#2 Notre Dame 0-0-1 0-4-2 X – 7 9 1
Tom Kandybowicz (L, 3-3), Brian Hearne (5), Scott Ward (6) and Dan Glover.
Aaron Heilman (W, 10-0) and Paul O’Toole.
Home Runs: Matt Longo, VU (solo in 3rd, 6th of season).
Doubles: Mike Houser (VU), Steve Sollmann (ND), Ben Cooke 2 (ND).
Villanova (18-20-1, 7-12 BIG EAST) 0-0-0 1-0-0 1-0-0 – 2 1 3
#2 Notre Dame (34-5-1, 14-2 BIG EAST) 1-0-0 0-2-6 2-4-X – 15 20 3
Bob Grzenda (L, 1-6), Adrian Schau (6), Mike Ciccotelli (7), Scott Ward (7), Rob Cafiero (8) and Marshall Canosa.
Danny Tamayo (W, 6-1), Ryan Kalita (9) and Paul O’Toole.
Home Runs: Steve Stanley, ND (solo in 2nd, 1st of season), Steve Sollmann, ND (1 on, 4th of season), Rob Cafeiro, VU (solo in 7th, 3rd of season), Kris Billmaier, ND (solo in 7th, 3rd of season).
Triples: Steve Stanley (ND), Matt Strickroth (ND), John Heintz (ND).
Doubles: Alec Porzel 2 (ND), Joe Thaman (ND).