After being delayed a day due to poor weather, the baseball team's season got underway with a double header on Saturday. The Bulls had not yet played an outdoor game and showed struggles to adjust as they were swept by North Carolina A&T.
Friday night's game was postponed due to weather; the Bulls were forced into a double header on Saturday. Buffalo (0-3) ran into a number of early season woes, dropping the first game, 9-1, the second game, 10-4 and the final game of the series by a score of 9-3.
"We just didn't perform the way we should have. It could be that a few guys haven't played," said Bulls head coach Ron Torgalski. "We have some new guys in the line up. Our middle infield is brand new (and) they're getting used to playing with each other. Six new pitches out of the 10 that we took on the trip."
Buffalo junior Zach Anderson got the ball for the Bulls in the first game, squaring off against Tim Johnson for what seemed to be a good old-fashioned pitching duel through the first five innings.
The Aggies held a 1-0 lead until Buffalo senior first baseman Nick Walcazk took one deep off of Johnson to tie the game 1-1 in the fifth. The tight game would end in the sixth inning when North Carolina A&T put up eight runs to seal the deal.
Buffalo came right out of the gate in the second game, gaining an early 2-0 lead when junior designated hitter Chris Ciesla knocked in sophomore outfielder Adam Skonieczki. Junior third baseman Jacob Rosenbeck scored on an error later in the game. But North Carolina A&T stormed back, scoring three runs in the second inning to take a 3-2 lead.
The Bulls would stage a comeback of their own, battling back in the fourth to retake the lead, 4-3, on Skonieczki's two-run single. The Aggies went in front again in the bottom of the fourth, scoring two runs to go up 5-4.
The Aggies pulled away in the seventh, scoring two more runs and adding three more in the eighth to put the game out of reach.
Although the score did not reflect it, the Bulls' hitting was the highlight of their weekend. They just couldn't hit at the right times, stranding 17 base runners in the first two games, and could not buy an extra base hit.
"I thought we swung the bats pretty good. We just didn't come up with the hits when we had guys on base," Torgalski said. "If you look at the first two games, out of the 20 hits we had, 19 of them were singles and I think that's a problem. We weren't getting the big hits when we had guys on base and they were."
Buffalo continued to struggle in the third and final game of the series against the Aggies, dropping the Sunday afternoon game 9-3.
The Aggies did not waste any time getting on the board against sophomore Chaz Mye. Buffalo was in an early 2-0 hole at the end of the first inning. In the bottom of the second inning, the Bulls would pull within one run when junior left fielder Eric Flynn drove in Walcazk to make it 2-1.
North Carolina A&T broke the game open in the third inning, putting up four more runs. The Aggies added two more in the fifth and one in the seventh to put the game away despite a couple of late Buffalo rallies.
Senior right fielder E.J. Folli led off the seventh with a single and was later driven in by Rosenbeck. In the ninth inning the Bulls loaded the bases with only one out. Sophomore centerfielder Bobby Pizzuto crossed the plate on a walk by Walcazk, but sophomore third baseman Shivam Bhan lined into a double play, ending the game and any chance of a comeback.
Like the previous two games, the Bulls had a problem with stranding runners, leaving a total of 12 players on base. It wasn't just the Bulls' untimely hitting that contributed to the losses, but a lack of stamina from the pitching staff.
"Half our pitching staff threw half way decent and half our pitching staff struggled. We were splitting games and bringing guys in...we just didn't have the right combination for any of the three games," Torgalski said. "We had six new guys throwing for the first time and we had to see what guys could do...everybody got in and everybody got a couple of innings and gave us an idea first time out."
The inexperience of some of the younger players and new pitchers was obvious throughout the series. The fact that it was Buffalo's first outdoor games against a team that has been there all year is a big reason for the sloppy play at times, creating nine errors over the three games.
"A lot of the guys are making their first appearance at the Division-I level and I can attribute some of that to nerves," Torgalski said. "A lot of the pitchers who went out there for the first time were nervous. They had never thrown at this level. At times they threw like they were nervous, at times our guy up at the plate looked like they were nervous, but that's why you play these early games."
Buffalo will next take the field on Friday when they travel to Morehead, Ky., to take on Morehead State in a three game series.
Photo: Courtesy of Laron Fomby
