The Minutemen suffered just their third loss in nine games on Wednesday as Hartford walked it off in the bottom of the 10th to get the victory.
UMass (16-21) fell on Wednesday to Hartford (14-26) after the Hawks took advantage of careless defense and mistakes. The Minutemen fought their way back from four runs down to tie up the game, but it wasn’t enough for them in the end.
“It was a battle back and forth,” coach Matt Reynolds said. “We made a couple mistakes to go down 4-0 and did a good job of just scraping and clawing our way back. Unfortunately, we left 13 guys on base and just didn’t do enough offensively, and we had two errors as well.”
UMass sent lefty Daniel Livnat to the mound, who for the second consecutive outing went six-plus innings for the team while allowing four runs, none earned, and four hits. All four runs scored in the third, following two errors by the Minutemen.
Freshman Jack Pawloski relieved Livnat and went the rest of the way, pitching a strong three and two-thirds innings but allowing the walk-off run to Hartford. The freshman only allowed two hits, which kept UMass in the game.
After being down four runs in the top of the fourth, the Minutemen managed to get two runs on the board due to a sacrifice fly from Collin Shapiro and a single from Nolan Kessinger. Separate runs in the top of the sixth and the eighth tied the game up for UMass.
“That [comeback] was a positive,” Reynolds said. “We really buried ourselves down. We made mistakes to get ourselves down four. It’s great that we keep coming back but I think we have to do a better job of having control of the game right away, and not waking up once something bad happens.”
For Hartford, Drew DeMartino was the hero. The sophomore went three for five at the plate and hit the game winning walk-off double for the Hawks in the bottom of the tenth. It was Hartford’s first extra-inning win of the season. It was a two-out rally in the bottom of the third that put Hartford out to four runs ahead of UMass.
UMass takes on Davidson in an upcoming weekend series. First pitch is scheduled for 3 p.m. on Friday.
Frederick Hanna III can be reached at [email protected] and followed on Twitter @FrederickHIII.
