Along with their bat bags, gloves and cleats, the baseball team brought home a victory this weekend, but it was accompanied by two losses at the hands of Maryland Eastern Shore.
The Bulls split a pair of blowout wins with the Hawks in a doubleheader on Saturday, and dropped the decisive game Sunday.
Buffalo lost the first game on Saturday 15-2 and won the second 11-3. After lopsided victories by each team, Maryland defeated the Bulls in a pitcher's dual by a score of 3-1.
Runs were hard to come by for both teams in the series finale. Each club received a strong performance from its starting pitcher. Bulls' sophomore Shane Wolf allowed just two earned runs in seven and one-third innings and struck out seven batters.
"Wolf pitched a heck of a game," said Bulls head coach Bill Breene. "He was low in the zone, his breaking ball and off-speed stuff were around the plate. He was much more like how he threw for us last year. He's got the stamina and endurance to get late into games."
In the rubber match, the Hawks jumped on the scoreboard early with a run in the bottom of the first inning, but Buffalo tied the game in the top of the fourth with a two-out rally.
With no one on base, junior catcher Dan Quinn singled to right field. After a base hit advanced Quinn to second, he reached third on a wild pitch. A single by freshman rightfielder James Piazza brought Quinn home and tied the score at 1-1.
The score remained knotted as the teams entered the eighth inning where clutch hitting proved to be the difference. Top of the eighth, Quinn again reached third base, but this time the Bulls failed to convert.
In the bottom half of the inning, Maryland came up with hits when they mattered most. With one out, junior clean-up hitter Justin Hoban sent a triple to the gap that brought in the go-ahead run. Hoban later scored on a single that landed just past first base and gave the Hawks a 3-1 advantage heading into the ninth.
Buffalo attempted to mount a rally in the top of the inning, but again failed to come up with timely hits. With the bases loaded and two outs, senior leftfielder David Amaro popped up to end the game.
"They did it when it mattered. They singled, they sacrificed, and a guy hit a ball into the gap," Breene said. "I give them credit. They sensed an opportunity to win and took advantage of it. We left a man at third four times and on second twice. We didn't get the timely hits."
On Saturday, in game two of the doubleheader, Buffalo was led by 15 team hits and a solid effort from senior starting pitcher Sean McWilliams.
The Bulls took advantage of three Maryland errors and bombarded the Hawks with five runs in the first inning, and another in the second. Buffalo scored at least one run in every inning except for the third.
Piazza, Quinn, senior leftfielder David Amaro, and freshman third baseman Jacob Rosenbeck led the Bulls' hitting attack. Piazza collected two hits and three RBIs, Quinn had two hits, Rosenbeck added three hits and two RBI's and Amaro paced the team with a game-high four hits.
In game one of the series, much like last weekend's season opener, the Bulls were plagued by sloppy defensive play and a slow offensive start. Buffalo made five errors in the field and after just three innings, trailed 6-1.
"They came out swinging the bats, finding holes," Breene said. "They banged out a bunch of hits. There weren't a whole lot of cheap ones. We cannot let ourselves dig a hole like that in the first game of each series. Hopefully that's kind of past us."
A bright spot in the loss for Buffalo was the play of freshman second baseman Brad Agustin. He was the only Bulls player with multiple hits. Agustin's three hits accounted for half of the Buffalo total.
The Bulls will look to improve upon their slow start with a three-game series at Marshall this weekend. Buffalo will play three games in three days with games scheduled for Friday at 1 p.m., Saturday at noon, and the series finale Sunday at 1 p.m.
Photo: Courtesy of Laron Fomby
