By Kenny Barto
With CCSU baseball needing a big weekend against conference foe Mount St. Mary’s, the team came away with a much needed series win, taking three games out of four against the Mountaineers.
Last weekend, CCSU (13-12-1, 9-7 NEC) was forced to play two doubleheaders in two days at Monmouth due to a rainout, and lost three out of four, giving them an NEC record of 6-6.
“I think last weekend at Monmouth we lost some close games but we were playing some great baseball,” said CCSU second-baseman Sean Miller-Jones. “So, we were sticking with it, and we got some good results this weekend.”
The Blue Devils opened the weekend series on Friday with a close, low-scoring game. The Mount (12-16, 6-10 NEC) scored first, with an RBI double in the fourth inning, which was answered in the fifth after a throwing error by the shortstop. The Mountaineers would add another in the eighth with a string of singles that was quickly answered in the bottom half by a Sean Miller-Jones home run to left to tie the score 2-2.
Starting pitcher Todd Savatsky was left in to start the ninth inning against Mount St. Mary’s’ big left-handed slugger Tommy Flynn. Flynn promptly hit a home-run deep to right field, which would stand as the winning run for The Mount.
“On Friday, we lost a close game,” said Miller-Jones. “But, we were still playing good ball in all three phases of the game.”
On Saturday, the Blue Devils opened up with their ace, senior southpaw Dave Krasnowiecki. Going into the match with The Mount, Krasnowiecki was only 1-3 with a 5.40 ERA, struggling in games earlier in the season against Navy, Binghamton, and Monmouth.
He did not disappoint on Saturday, however, going all seven innings in the opening game of the twin bill. He gave up only three hits, and struck out four in a game that the Blue Devils needed to have.
“It was time for him to step up,” said head coach Charlie Hickey. “I get on the pitchers all of the time and tell them “You have one day a week that’s your day,” and Dave definitely stepped up big time.”
CCSU’s offense struck quickly to give Krasnowiecki a quick lead. After Jake Matuszak lead the game off with a triple, Dylan Delacruz brought him in with a ground out to second base.
CCSU maintained their 1-0 lead until the fifth inning. With one out, Delacruz reached on an infield single to third base. Mitch Wells followed with an opposite field, line-drive double down the left field line which brought a struggling Pat Epps to the plate with runners on second and third. Epps hit a deep fly ball to the warning track in dead center field, which was more than far enough to bring in Delacruz from third.
In the sixth, Tyler McIntyre doubled to left center that drove in Andy Lalli from first. Matuszak came up two batters later and drove in Normand Gosselin, who pinch-ran for McIntyre to bring the score to 4-0. The game took just one hour and 45 minutes to complete. The win brought Krasnowiecki to 2-3, and lowered his ERA to 4.28 on the season.
In game two, CCSU scored all of their runs in the first two innings. In the first, Miller-Jones and J.P. Sportman both had two out RBI singles. With both of them on base, McIntyre would hit his second home run of his career to bring the score to 5-0. In the second inning, CCSU added two runs with a Delacruz single followed by a Pat Epps RBI double.
The Mount did not get on the board until the fourth, but slowly crawled their way back by following with two runs in the fifth, and one more in the sixth. Josh Ingham continued to be hot, striking out three batters in the seventh for his third save of the season, completing CCSU’s 7-4 victory.
“Everytime I see Josh Ingham in the game, we win,” said Hickey. “So, that was my thought to get him in there with a clean inning, and give him another opportunity.”
Nick Neumann went six innings, giving up seven hits, but only one out of the four runs were earned.
“[Neumann] was great,” Hickey said. “The problem was, we made him get four or five more outs than he was supposed to, but it was great to get two wins today.”
The Blue Devils’ momentum continued into Sunday, with a huge 11-3 victory to give CCSU the series victory against the Mountaineers. Mitch Wells went 4-for-4 with an RBI, Matuszak went 3-5 with two runs scored, McIntyre went 2-for-4 with two RBIs and Sean Miller-Jones homered for the second time in the series.
CCSU was losing 2-0 going into the bottom of the fourth when it tied the game at two. CCSU scored three runs in the sixth followed by a five run seventh, which included Miller-Jones’ three-run home run.
“It felt good to get those three runs on the board,” Miller-Jones said. “It always feels good to put a team away, and to do so to give us the series meant a lot.”
Tom Coughlin pitched six innings, giving up seven hits and three earned runs while striking out three and walking three. Nick Boyd followed, pitching the final three innings while giving up only two hits to finish off the game.
“We talked about this as an opportunity for us as a team to get better,” coach Hickey said. “What I mean by that is we had already won two games and we came out and got the third, and that’s what good teams do, and we really hadn’t done that yet this year.”
Freshman J.P. Sportman was named the Akadema/NEC Rookie of the Week. Sportman sported an impressive .529 on-base percentage, and reached base in all of the Blue Devils’ five games. He batted .500 (8-for-16) which included four runs scored, four RBI’s, and three extra base hits.
CCSU has a conference bye this week, and will face Holy Cross on Tuesday, Stony Brook on Wednesday, followed by a three game series at in-state rival Fairfield Friday through Sunday. Friday and Saturday will be played at Fairfield, while the Sunday game will be played at CCSU at 1 p.m.