The Massachusetts baseball team fell to Quinnipiac 11-6 on Wednesday after a back-and-forth contest. The Minutemen (18-23, 8-7 Atlantic 10) battled back to take a lead before the Bobcats (17-23, 7-8 MAAC) took advantage of pitching mistakes and never looked back.
In the bottom of the fifth, UMass showed some fight with a big inning. Matt Travisano hit a grounder to the shortstop who made a throwing error, scoring two Minuteman runners. Then, after a Carter Hanson walk, Mike Gervasi strolled to the plate with two runners on and blasted a home run over the left field wall, giving UMass a 6-4 lead.
“[Gervasi] had a little snap where he was kind of punching out, not kind of punching out. He was punching out a lot and then we stuck with him and he came up with a big two-out, two-RBI single [in a game against Saint Joseph’s],” head coach Matt Reynolds said. “It was good again today. So yeah, he’s been great for us and hopefully continues to stay hot.”
The action started early when Quinnipiac led off the game with a double. Shortly after, it picked up its first run via a one-out RBI single taking an early 1-0 lead. In the bottom half of the second, UMass struck with a Jack Peters two-out RBI double. A base running mishap ended the inning before it could get going shortly after the run crossed, leaving the game tied at one.
The Bobcats tacked on a run in the top of the fourth with a towering no-doubt solo shot to left field to go up 2-1. In the fifth, Jack Levine had a wild inning with three walks and a hit by a pitch. One of the walks scored a run, and the next batter bunted in another run to give Quinnipiac a commanding 4-1 lead. Levine finished with a stat line of two hits, two runs, three walks, one hit by a pitch and one strikeout in two innings of work.
The pitching woes continued in the seventh inning for the Minutemen, as Charlie Devin took the mound. Devin allowed a bunt single, hit two batters and balked before getting pulled out of the game with the bases loaded. Jacob Terwilliger came in for relief and allowed an RBI walk, sacrifice fly, a single and a double which left Quinnipiac back with a commanding lead at 9-6. Two more runs from an RBI single in the top of the ninth sealed the Minutemen’s fate.
“We didn’t really execute very well on the mound,” Reynolds said. “We were kind of flat overall. And then, offensively, we were just okay. Everything was just kind of flat. And then the pitching execution just wasn’t quite there.”
Six UMass pitchers allowed 11 runs off 12 hits with six walks and three hit-by-pitches. Terwilliger was credited with the loss.
“Too many free passes, too many hit-by-pitches, too many mis-executed pitches when we were ahead in the count and too [much] falling behind in the count early on,” Reynolds said. “Hopefully it’s just an anomaly for us and we can move on. But it wasn’t a great performance [Wednesday] overall.”
The Minutemen’s next game is Friday, May 3 for the first game of an A-10 bout against St. Bonaventure. First pitch is scheduled for 3 p.m. at Earl Lorden Field.
“Nothing’s going to be handed to us and we need to make sure that we are locked in and pedaled down all the time if we want to get to our goal,” Reynolds said. “Hopefully they learned that lesson and if that’s the case then I’m happy to learn it on a Wednesday and apply it on the weekend.”
Owen Shelffo can be reached at [email protected] and followed on Twitter/X @owen_shelffo
