After patiently waiting to get on the board in Friday’s opener, the Minutemen broke out to an early lead on Saturday in the second game of the weekend series versus George Washington.
UMass (10-16, 5-6 Atlantic 10) put up three runs in the bottom of the first to give themselves the early lead, and give their pitchers enough run support to feel confident on the mound.
“It’s enormous to be able to get those lead stretches,” coach Matt Reynolds said. “If we continue to keep the gas on and continue to swing and put pressure on the other team, it makes them go through their guys. I think the guys are learning that we need to keep the gas down at all times.”
UMass struck GW (20-15, 4-7 A-10) starting pitcher Brady Renner early, getting to him in the bottom of the first on a three-run homer that was blasted to left from first-basemen Anthony Videtto. After walking out slowly out of the box, the first-basemen joked that it looked like he pimped it.
“Honestly, I didn’t mean to pimp it at all,” Videtto said jokingly. “I was just looking to make sure it was fair, and I happened to be walking down the line as it was happening, then I gave a little bat toss, but that was after the fact.”
For the second straight game the Minutemen put up at least eight runs. A big inning in the fifth extended their lead and opened the game up.
“It’s so much fun when you are playing well,” said Videtto. “Everyone is playing so well, everyone is hitting. Nobody is trying to do too much up there. Everybody is letting everybody else hit them in.”
On the mound for UMass was freshman Jack Steele, who put together by far his longest outing of the season. The freshman went 6 1/3 innings pitched, allowing three earned runs on five hits and three walks.
“I felt good overall,” Steele said. “Fastball felt good and my slider felt good for the first time in a while. I was finally consistent with it. I got a lot of confidence because I finally settled down and started hitting spots.”
The big fifth inning was in large part because of the three-run homer to right field hit by catcher Connor Smith. The senior finished the day going two for four with three RBIs. Alongside him was Logan Greene, who was a tough out at the plate for the second straight game, going four for five. In the first two games of this series, Greene has gone seven for nine at the plate.
“I was seeing the ball well, seeing it deep [in the zone],” Greene said. “Staying on off-speed pitches which I haven’t been doing prior to this series too well. [We] didn’t take our foot off the pedal. We kept the pressure on them and ended up putting a five spot up to open the game up.”
After the five-run fifth where the Minutemen opened the game up, George Washington went on to score two runs and increase their total to four on the day, but the lead for the Minutemen was never threatened. Righty Brad Collins came into relieve Steele, and went two innings allowing no runs. Sophomore Zach Clevenger finished up the game going 2/3 innings pitched and giving up no runs.
Frederick Hanna III can be reached at [email protected] and followed on twitter @FrederickHIII.
