UMW Baseball Thumps Catholic 13-3

By MORGAN THOMPSON

This past Tuesday the UMW men’s baseball team, who was recently crowned Capial Athletic Conference champions over the weekend, continued their winning streak at Dickinson Stadium against Landmark conference stand-out Catholic University.

The Eagles triumphed 13-3 over the visiting Cardinals and won the game in the regulatory nine innings. Going into the game, the Eagles’ Assistant Coach Kevin Foeman wanted all of his players to approach the game eager to win and to be prepared to play to the best of their abilities.

“I just wanted to make sure we took the game inning by inning. I didn’t want the guys to be complacent with the weekend’s results. We took Catholic seriously and were able to play well,” Foeman said.

In just his second start of the season, junior pitcher Parker Talbert pitched all nine innings of the contest for the Eagles and captured his first win of the season. Talbert gave up only four hits, walked no one, struck out three, and surrendered only one earned run (two unearned) in his complete game outing.

The Eagles had a slow start, falling behind Catholic early 3-0 going into the bottom of the second inning. However, UMW responded in the home half of second, as the Eagles took the lead by scoring four runs, all runs coming on RBI singles from three separate Eagles’ players. Five runs followed in the third inning for UMW, securing their upper-hand in the game and giving them a commanding 9-3 lead.

The home team was led by a balanced offensive attack, as seven of the nine starters for the Eagles recorded at least one hit, seven different players tallied an RBI, every player reached base safely and each player scored at least one run.

After playing the entire championship game this past Sunday, junior Eric Rehbein continued to press on. Rehbein went 3-5 at the plate, scoring one run and adding an RBI triple in the victory. Freshman Seth Jordan had an impressive game as well, as he too went 3-5 on the day, added two runs and an RBI single to boot. Junior Jackson Clement was not to be outdone by his teammates, as the right fielder went 3-4 while scoring two runs along with an RBI double.

The Eagles continued to deny the Cardinals for the remainder of the game and refused to allow them cut into the UMW lead. The four final runs were scored in the sixth inning by the Eagles to cap off the notable victory with the final score resting at 13-3.

“It came down to everyone gelling at right time and believing they could do it,” Foeman said. “We’ve had a lot of tough losses that could’ve ended our season. The team as a whole wanted it more than they have in the past. We weren’t happy with ending it before the tournament. The seniors really took it upon themselves to make sure we got there.”
The Eagles now stand 23-10 overall. Mary Washington’s next game will be today, as they will visit Catholic University at 4:00 p.m.