ANNAPOLIS, Md. — With the help of solid pitching and bats becoming hot at the right time, the Massachusetts baseball team defeated the Naval Academy 4-3 Tuesday afternoon.
Minutemen (3-4-2) starting pitcher Tyler Dalton kept the Midshipmen (7-8) scoreless through four innings. Dalton started to falter in the third when he loaded the bases when he hit a Navy player by a pitch and allowed two singles. With the bases loaded, Dalton got the last two batters out with a strike out and ground out.
The first run that Dalton allowed came in the fifth inning when a Midshipmen was on second when Christian Policelli doubled to put Navy on the board. With a runner on base. Logan Keller homered to left field giving the Midshipmen a 3-2 lead heading into the sixth.
The second inning was when UMass’ bats started to heat up. Catcher Dylan Judd doubled to center field, then Nolan Tichy singled, moving Judd up to third base. Christian Walsh came up to bat and hit the ball on what could have been an easy out at first. Judd stayed on third and scored an easy run for the Minutemen. The Midshipmen’s defense got Tichy out at second, but left Walsh at first, keeping the inning alive.
On a wild pitch with Kevin Skagerlind at the plate, Navy pitcher Reece Early moved Walsh to second. Skagerlind hit a long single, and Walsh scored from second to give the Minutemen a 2-0 lead.
Tichy continued to be a bright spot in the Minutemen’s offense with two hits in four at-bats. Through seven games the leftfielder maintained a .400 batting average, with eight hits on 20 at-bats.
UMass struggled to put solid at-bats together in the sixth, but the seventh inning is when the Minutemen started to rally back. Drew DeMartino was hit by a pitch and advanced to third on two groundouts by the Minutemen. This proved beneficial for UMass when Judd hit a single to second base to allow DeMartino score and tie the game 3-3.
Pitching struggles proved costly for Navy, but helped UMass have a lead again late into the game. Collin Shapiro and Cole Hebbel were standing on first and second when DeMartino hit a hard double to center field to send Shapiro home and give UMass a 4-3 lead.
The Midshipmen could not battle back to give the Minutemen the win in the end.
UMass head coach, Matt Reynolds coached as an assistant coach with the Midshipmen for six seasons from 2008-14 where he coached a number of Major League Baseball draft picks before coming to the Minutemen where he has now been coaching for his fifth season.
The Minutemen will take on the University of Maryland, Baltimore County on Wednesday, March 16th with first pitch at 3 p.m.
Kayla Gregoire can be reached at [email protected] and followed on Twitter @Kaygregoire.
