The Massachusetts baseball team is at risk of not making the Atlantic 10 tournament, something it hasn’t accomplished since 2009.
UMass (13-21, 5-7 in A-10) has four regular season conference series left as it faces off with Charlotte, Rhode Island, Fordham and St. Bonaventure.
All four teams are ahead of the Minutemen in the A-10 standings as the 49ers lead the conference, URI sits in fourth, the Rams in fifth with the Bonnies in eighth. UMass ranks ninth.
The Minutemen are coming off a 4-2 win over Northeastern in the Beanpot consolation game at Fenway Park behind strong pitching performances from Ben Hart, Joe Popielarczyk and Leif Sorenson. Hart earned the win throwing 5.2 innings, allowing two runs on six hits, with five walks and six strikeouts. Popielarczyk pitched 2.1 innings of hitless relief and struck out two.
“Ben gave us another quality outing. Whenever he’s starting in college he’s always giving the team a chance to win and that what he did again today and [Popielarczyk] did a nice job bridging it so that all you can ask for,” said Sorenson in a media relations postgame interview.
Sorenson recorded his fifth save of the season, pitching a scoreless ninth inning and tied the UMass school record for career saves with 10.
“Records are really meant to be broken, it’s not something I really look at. I’m just trying to help the team in any way that I can whether it’s coming in early in the game or starting the ninth,” said Sorenson. “I’m just trying to help the team win, and that’s my job.”
UMass was swept in its last series at home against Xavier, outscored 24-9 in three games. The Minutemen have not won a series against a conference opponent with a better conference record than them. The two A-10 teams the Minutemen have beat in a series this year are George Washington and most recently Temple, taking two-of-three games in each.
The Minutemen have disappointed their home crowd with a 1-6 record in Amherst, something which they hope to change as the team prepares for seven more games on the home diamond. The two home series are against the A-10 top-ranked 49ers and the fifth place Rams, as well as one game against Quinnipiac.
The last time UMass made it to the A-10 championship was in 2009, when it was the No. 4 seed. The Minutemen’s first of four remaining A-10 series begins this weekend as they take on Charlotte beginning on Friday at 3 p.m.
Michael Counos can be reached at [email protected].
