The baseball team's offense had been unstoppable and the Bulls entered their game against Le Moyne expecting to continue their offensive firepower after averaging 21 runs during the last four games.
Unfortunately, the bats of Buffalo (14-20, 3-8 Mid-American Conference) took a day off while the pitching of the Le Moyne Dolphins (11-17) dominated.
Buffalo found itself in an early deficit that it could not recover from, falling to the Dolphins, 7-3, on Wednesday at Amherst Audubon Field.
The day started off rocky for the Bulls as Le Moyne jumped on junior starter Chaz Mye (0-4) in the first inning.
With runners in scoring position early on, Le Moyne's Matt Marra hit a two-run single that was later followed by another RBI single. This gave the Dolphins a 3-0 even before the Bulls picked up their bats.
"Of course you would want the momentum on your side," said head coach Ron Torgalski. "But they came out swinging the bats and they set the tone early. I told Chaz to relax and he did eventually settle in."
Mye took the advice of his coaches and prevented the Dolphins from scoring again until the fifth inning.
Buffalo responded to Le Moyne's strong start in the bottom of the first inning. Senior designated hitter Chris Ciesla continued his hot stretch with an RBI single that scored junior second baseman Brad Agustin. The single extended Ciesla's hitting streak to 18 games, the longest streak by a Bull since the 2005 season.
After the first inning, Buffalo and Lemoyne traded scoreless innings. Buffalo's Mye and the Le Moyne combination of Cory Nelson and Mark Kuzma kept the bats quiet.
"We were hitting their pitch and not our pitch," Torgalski said. "We were not as aggressive as I would have liked us to be and we chased a lot of bad pitches. The combination of that and the fact that we could not get the key hit contributed to us struggling in the early innings."
Both offenses came back to life in the fifth inning. Le Moyne put another run on the board on an RBI single that gave the Dolphins a 4-1 lead. Mye exited the game after closing out the fifth inning.
Buffalo cut the deficit back to two in the bottom of the inning. With a runner on third with no outs, junior right fielder Charlie Karstedt hit a sacrifice fly to get the Bulls back in the game.
Le Moyne and Buffalo traded runs again in the sixth inning. Third baseman Matt Marra crossed home plate when he stole third and advanced home on a poor throw by junior catcher Brad Cochrane.
Buffalo countered with a run via a double steal gone wrong.
The Bulls attempted a double steal with senior left fielder Eric Flynn on second base and junior center fielder Adam Skonieczki on first.
Skonieczki was caught in a pickle between first and second, occupying the Dolphins' attention and allowing Flynn to run home. The mental error by the Dolphins made the score 5-3.
"Our player on second [Flynn] has the green light to steal whenever," Torgalski said. "Our guy on first [Skonieczki] saw that Flynn was stealing and he just did not run hard."
The run scored on the double steal would be Buffalo's last. Le Moyne's pitchers shut down the Bulls as a lack of timely hitting doomed the team.
Buffalo left 13 runners on base in the game and three in the seventh inning alone as junior catcher Brad Cochrane flied out to right field with the bases loaded.
Le Moyne added two more runs in the top of the seventh, but the story was all about the inability of the Bulls to hit with runners on base.
"We must hit with guys on base in order to win," Torgalski said. "We didn't have any extra base hits and we left a lot of guys on base. That combination killed us. Our guys have to go up to the plate with a better approach next game."
By the time the final out was made by junior Shivam Bhan, the Bulls were ready to get off of the field as they scurried up equipment and made a beeline for the parking lot.
Torgalski took some positives from the loss.
"I thought Chaz threw well after the first inning," Torgalski said. "Our late relief pitchers came in and got outs, and, although we couldn't hit them in, we got a lot of guys on base."
The Bulls look to get the bats going again when they travel to Oxford, Ohio and begin a three-game set with the Miami (Ohio) Redhawks. First pitch is set for 6 p.m. on Friday at McKie Baseball Field.
