The members of the Massachusetts baseball team needed something to help them forget about a 17-3 shellacking handed down to them by Connecticut Tuesday.
They got it.
Senior designated hitter HYPERLINK “http://umassathletics.ocsn.com/sports/m-basebl/mtt/morgan_chris00.html” Chris Morgan paced the Maroon and White offense with a double, a home run, two RBI and two runs scored while sophomore Mike Crane earned the victory with 4-1/3 innings of scoreless relief as the Minutemen pounded Hartford 9-2.
“It was a good game,” UMass head coach Mike Stone said. “We swung the bats pretty well, and it’s good to win. It feels a lot better than being on the other side of the score.”
The Minutemen took a 2-0 lead in the bottom of the first inning when junior shortstop Mike Athas opened the frame with a single through the left side, followed two batters later by a tremendous two-run homer by Morgan.
“[Morgan’s homerun] really set the tone for us,” Stone said. “He’s someone that can do that for us with the bat.”
“I wasn’t really sure [if it was gone],” Morgan said. “I kind of got it off the handle a little bit.”
The lead grew to 3-0 in the bottom of the second on a solo home run by senior outfielder Matt Boulanger, his first of the season. After the Hawks scored a run in the top of the fourth, UMass took control of the game with four more runs in the bottom of the inning, keyed by a two-run single from sophomore outfielder Jason Twomley. The Maroon and White added runs in both the fifth and the sixth innings, while Hartford would wrap up the scoring with an unearned run in the seventh.
“We got the barrel on the ball a lot today,” Stone said. “But we should’ve scored a lot more runs, because we had the opportunities. I would have felt a lot better if we had scored four or five more.”
Crane, who entered the game with the bases loaded in relief of freshman starter Jon Davis and struck out rightfielder Matt Younghans to end the threat, did not walk a batter and set down six Hawks by way of the punchout.
“Mike Crane came in and shut them down,” Stone said. “You need to have momentum on defense to get the offense going and we got that. He’s someone who’s got good command of his pitches, and [in that situation] we needed someone who had pitched well their last time out and someone the defense can help out.”
Morgan finished the day two-for-two and Twomley went two-for-four with three runs batted in, while freshman righthander Jason Hickey worked a perfect ninth for the Minutemen.
“We started hitting the ball and were more comfortable at the plate, so that will make some people feel good,” Stone said. “We also got a lot of people some work, so it helps to set the tone [for the weekend].”
The Minutemen return to action Saturday when they travel to La Salle for an Atlantic 10 doubleheader with the Explorers, beginning at noon.
