LOWELL— The Massachusetts baseball team found itself down six runs heading into the top of the ninth Tuesday night at LeLacheur Park against its in-state rival UMass Lowell. The Minutemen (11-30, 4-14 Atlantic 10) didn’t give up hope.
Michael Toth led off the inning by reaching on an error. Sam Hill followed it up with a hit-by-pitch. UMass coach Matt Reynolds turned to pinch hitter Mike Gervasi to get a rally going and he delivered with a massive double into left field to score Toth. Gervasi sat at second with Hill on third in an 8-3 game. Will MacLean drove both of them in with a single to make the score 8-5.
Steve Luttazi and Carter Hanson walked to load the bases for a red-hot Justin Blumenthal. He took a 1-1 fastball and sent it deep into left field halfway up the wall to score two more runs. A River hawks (17-28, 9-12 American East) wild pitch tied the game up at eight.
“(Blumenthal) has been fantastic,” Reynolds said. “He made the plays he needed to make. He’s done a great job especially as a freshman and especially not being in the starting lineup at the start of the year.”
Blumenthal finished 3-5 with three RBIs.
Charlie Devin returned to the mound in the ninth after silencing the Lowell offense in his lone inning of work. After a first pitch ball, the River hawks leadoff hitter launched a ball deep into the left field night for a walk off home run.
“It was great to see us charge back again,” Reynolds said. “We seem to have that in our back pocket, but we need to make it a lot easier on ourselves to win baseball games and not have to ask for a miracle late.”
Tyler Dalton started the game for the Minutemen. He allowed two runs in the first and three in the second before being pulled for Blake Bennett. Dalton’s final stat line was five runs on three hits in just over an inning pitched.
Bennett settled down for UMass, allowing just one run on three hits in his three innings of work. However, the Minutemen could get nothing going offensively. They managed to get a few base runners but left nine runners on base, a common theme this season.
In the sixth, UMass strung together some quality at-bats. Carter Hanson ripped a grounder to the second baseman to force an error to score MacLean. After Hanson stole second, Blumenthal hit him in with a single for the Minutemen’s only two runs prior to the ninth.
Daniel Livnat and Dylan Terwilliger both pitched in the bottom half of the sixth, allowing two runs to Lowell. Their final stat lines combined were two hits, two runs and just one strikeout in their combined 2.2 innings outing.
“They need to come out with the type of energy that they’ve been coming out with all year,” Reynolds said. “Today was a little bit of an anomaly. We were kind of in a fog.”
The Minutemen have a quick turnaround as they host Stonehill on Wednesday, May 10 with first pitch slated for 4 p.m.
“(Scott LeSieur) is gonna come out and compete… He comes out like a bulldog every time.” Reynolds said about Wednesday’s starter.
Owen Shelffo can be reached at [email protected] and followed on Twitter @owen_shelffo
