Baseball Drops Four Games

The woes of the Mary Washington baseball team continued this weekend in their three losses to Salisbury University this weekend.

In the first game of the St. Patrick’s Day doubleheader, offense was hard to come by for the Eagles, who lost 5-0. Salisbury pitcher Andrew Levy limited the Eagles only had three hits while striking out five.

Salisbury benefited from errors by senior Santino Rosanova and sophomore Kevin Yarnell, scoring in three runs in the third inning. A pair of wild pitches by junior Torey Macari and senior Zach Hendrix proved to be runs four and five for Salisbury. Despite the wild pitch, Macari had a solid outing giving up five hits
in four and one third innings of work.

Salisbury currently leads the Capital Athletic Conference with a record of 15-3. They are the No. 7 ranked team in the nation for Division III.

Eagles and the Sea Gulls took the diamond again later in the day. Mary Washington looked to get their bats going after their game one goose egg.

In Salisbury’s first offensive outing it was “déjà vu all over again,” for the Eagles. They allowed two runs off of three hits and another error.
Their bats finally came alive in the second half of the inning.

Freshman Chris King singled and a sophomore Ben Sisk doubled to get runners on base. Senior Brent Steffy singled to drive King in and then junior Seth Jordan drove Sisk in with a ground out. Unfortunately it would be their last time scoring for a while. Salisbury had outscored the Eagles 3-0 when it came to the seventh inning.

In the Sea Gulls last offensive outing, they showed their dominance scoring two runs apiece from senior Matt Abramson and junior Joe Carleton.

The Eagles answered with runs by sophomore Connor Finnerty and King but it was simply too little and too late. The team went home with a 9-4 loss.

The Eagles defeated the Gulls in last year’s tournament due in part by the brilliant pitching effort by now junior Michael Straub. Straub took the mound again on Sunday.
Straub was solid after letting up two runs in the first inning . He pitched seven innings, surrendering four runs and eight hits while striking out five.

The Eagles took a lead for the first time in the series in the fourth inning. Steffy infield single led the fourth inning off. After a Jordan double to left, the Eagles had runners on the corners. Rosanova flied out to centerfield but Steffy was able to tag and put the Eagles on the board.

Next up was Finnerty who reached by a fielders choice, Jordan was tagged out at home during the play. Yarnell was clutch, doubling down the left field line scoring Finnerty. Freshman Jonathan Haught scored Yarnell on a double.

The Eagles scored once more in the sixth inning while Salisbury continued to pound away.

The only had one hit in the last three innings due in large part to the excellent closing job by 6-6 juggernaut Stephen Miller.

The loosing continued Tuesday evening as they squad to Frostburg State University. After leading in the first inning by freshman Connor Wells’ run, Sisk let up five runs before being pulled in the fifth. The Eagles scored once in the sixth inning and twice in the ninth but they could only trim the deficit to three, falling 7-4 in Fredericksburg.

Head coach Tom Sheridan isn’t too upset about his teams’ current situation.

“We’re just going through a rough patch,” Sheridan said. Instead of players hanging their heads, morale is high, “Players are working harder and coming to me asking what they can do to improve the team.”

The team has 14 games less in the regular season. They need their whole team to work together to salvage their season and go far in the NCAA tournament.

“We need offense, defense and pitching to coincide to win games, I’m not going to point fingers,” Sheridan said.

The team had a match up with SUNY Old Westbury last night but it was postponed due to rain. They play a pair of games against Gallaudet University on Sunday. After Gallaudet they will go on a road trip, not making winning any easier. They will face Randolph-Macon College and St. Marys College during that span.