The Massachusetts baseball team lost all three games in its weekend series against Dayton at Earl Lorden Field. UMass (9-16,1, 3-9 Atlantic 10) gave up strong 4-0 and 6-0 leads in the first and third games, respectively.

Sunday’s match was the closest of the three, with the Minutemen falling 9-8 after letting up an unanswered run in each of the final three innings.

“I really like the way we approached [Sunday],” head coach Matt Reynolds said. “We made some mistakes that made it a closer game than it needed to be, and that’s unfortunate, but I really liked the way that we approached it coming off of a really difficult day on Friday. The energy was great, enthusiasm was great and all that.”

In the latter game, UMass was up 6-2 going into the fifth inning. A four-run fifth inning for the Flyers (17-17, 7-5 A-10), through three singles and a hit by pitch, brought the matchup into close contention all the way to the end.

Michael Toth posted a standout offensive performance. Toth went 4-for-5, bringing in two runners on a double and a single, while also scoring two of his own. Infielder Reece McCarthy got a hit in three of his five at-bats and tallied one run and one RBI.

“[Toth’s] been awesome,” Reynolds said. “We’ve been going back and forth with him and [Ryan] Kolben. We have two really good defensive catchers and they’ve both been just okay at the plate. So, it was really good to see [Toth] step up [Sunday] and he was a huge part of our offense.”

Sam Belliveau started pitching for the Minutemen for the first 4.1 innings of play. Dayton matched him for six runs on 10 hits. Sixteen of the 17 runs from both teams were earned on Sunday.

Friday’s double-header ended with two losses for UMass. The first matchup highlighted some pitching struggles from the Minutemen. Bobby McDonough gave up four runs on three hits in two-thirds innings. Mikey Jensen relieved him and allowed two hits and five runs through 1.1 innings on the mound.

Michael DiMartini led the Flyers’ offense, recording multiple hits in each game. Down 5-3 in the seventh inning of the first game, DiMartini homered in three runs for the lead. His momentum led to two more home runs from his teammates in the inning, and an eventual 12 consecutive runs through the final three frames. In those same innings, UMass never scored.

In the second game on Friday, the Minutemen struggled to generate offense, finding their lone run in the eighth inning after allowing Dayton nine tallies.

Callen Powers gave up nine hits and two walks for six Flyers runs. After 5.2 innings on the mound, Drew Sliwkowski stepped in and gave up two earned runs.

Through three games, UMass conceded two runs on errors, while Dayton did not surrender any.

Energy in the dugout helped the Minutemen rally on Sunday. The volume and momentum pushed the team through the closest game of the weekend.

“It has a huge impact on our guys, it has a huge impact on their guys,” Reynolds said. “It’s really important in the college game, it just is. I talked to the guys afterwards and that’s what we’ve got to bottle up and make sure that that’s an ingredient for us every single game.”

UMass returns to play against Fairfield on Wednesday at Earl Lorden Field. First pitch is set for 3 p.m. and the game will be streamed live on ESPN+.

Caroline Burge can be reached at [email protected] and followed on X @Caroline_Burge