After losing two of three games in its series against the University of Rhode Island, the Massachusetts baseball team lost its second straight series in the beginning of its Atlantic 10 matchups.
The second game for the Minutemen (9-17, 2-4 A-10) highlighted strengths on both sides of the field. The starting pitcher for UMass, Renn Lints, got his second win of the season after going seven innings, giving up two earned runs and striking out two.
On the offensive side, Mike Gervasi had two RBIs after hitting an RBI double in the third and a solo home run in the eighth inning.
Weather conditions for this game saw very high wind speeds, and it was difficult for both teams to not only score runs, but also to make contact with the ball. Conditions for Friday’s game had wind speeds ranging between 16-20 mph, 12-24 mph winds on Saturday and 11-21 mph winds on Sunday.
“This weekend the conditions for hitting were really really hard,” head coach Matt Reynolds said. “It was just impossible to hit.”
As the Minutemen continued to leave runners on base and struggle to score, the team had a lead for only four innings over the weekend, with the rest of the innings resulting in either a tied score or UMass losing. In the third game alone, the Minutemen left 11 runners on base.
The Minutemen struggled early in their first matchup of the weekend series. UMass put its first run of the game on the board in the top of the eighth inning after senior infielder Nolan Tichy scored from third off an RBI groundout hit by redshirt sophomore Kyle Hoog. This at-bat is Hoog’s first RBI and Tichy’s 14th time crossing home plate this season.
URI (7-17, 2-4 A-10) struck first off a bunt from freshman Reece Moroney and a throwing error by the Minutemen with Rob Butler scoring. UMass gave up six unanswered runs before Hoog’s RBI and only scored one over the span of the first 11 innings of the series.
“We left many of the guys on base and we had a lot of opportunities to come up with the big hit and we didn’t,” Reynolds said.
The Minutemen struck first in the third inning of the third game. Infielder Jack Beverly hit a single to left field allowing Matt Travisano to score. While URI answered in the bottom of the fourth where it put three on the board, in the top of the fifth, UMass answered back.
In the top of the fifth inning, Beverly struck again as he hit a double into left field, allowing Travisano and Austin Burgess to score. The Rams put the final touch on the game when Will Hindle scored a two run RBI double, handing the Minutemen a 5-3 defeat.
“They got a big hit at the end defeating us 5-3. [Sunday] was some good college baseball going back and forth both ways,” Reynolds said. “We’ve just [got to] play better.”
UMass travels to Brighton, Massachusetts, taking part in the Baseball Beanpot, where it competes against Harvard University for the Minutemen’s first of two midweek games. The first game is on Tuesday, April 9, and it is their second and final game in the tournament with first pitch set to take place at 1 p.m.
“Hopefully we can get the offense going again and firing again offensively like we were in the beginning of the year,” Reynolds said. “Two tough losses this weekend but just get right back out there again on Tuesday.”
Jonathan Murgida can be reached at [email protected] and followed on Twitter @jonathanmurgida.
