Bats Come Alive as Baseball Finishes a Successful Road Trip

With temperatures heating up all over the country, the baseball team is starting to heat up as well.

After starting the season 2-6, the Bulls (6-9) spent spring break on a seven game road trip to Maryland and Pennsylvania. Although they weren't perfect on the road trip, they showed promise, winning four of their seven games.

Buffalo had its best stretch of games all season, winning four straight.

The Bulls showed that they are capable of winning in many different ways during that stretch, jumping out to an early lead against Coppin State (0-16), crushing Long Island University-Brooklyn (8-10) and coming from behind against Towson (6-8) and University of Maryland-Baltimore County (5-10).

Perhaps the Bulls most impressive win was the thorough beating of LIU Brooklyn. After falling behind 3-0 in the second inning, Buffalo scored 11 runs in three innings to take an 11-5 lead. A nine-run sixth inning increased the Bulls' lead, putting the game out of reach and taking a 20-9 lead into the seventh inning. They would score seven more runs before the game was over, winning by a final margin of 27-13.

The Bulls left Maryland with as much momentum as they had all season, looking to finish their road trip on a strong note. However, things changed upon crossing the border into Pennsylvania, where Buffalo lost three straight to end spring break on a sour note.

Although Buffalo held the lead in each game, it allowed its opponents to hang close and eventually inch ahead. Two of the Bulls' losses were by one run. They are 0-5 in games decided by one run this season.

The Bulls defense was particularly suspect. After averaging just one error per game in their first four contests, that number doubled in the final three contests, with three of those coming in a heart breaking loss to La Salle (10-8). The Bulls held a lead as late as the 6th inning, and tied the game when junior shortstop Jon Mestas singled in the top of the eighth.

But in the bottom of the ninth, La Salle senior outfielder Tony Negrin reached on an error, and eventually scored the winning run.

Head coach Ron Torgalski wasn't as critical of his defense. Although he thought that some of the errors came from a lack of concentration, he also noted that the Bulls have not practiced enough on their field yet and that field conditions were less then ideal.

Torgalski was impressed with his team's performance throughout the week and thought that the Bulls showed some real improvement offensively. He thought that the slowed offensive production during the weekend had to do with the heightened level of pitching.

"We happened to be in a stretch here where we faced three pretty good weekend guys for La Salle, St. Joes (4-15) and Villanova (13-7) these past three days and that makes a big difference," said Torgalski. "We hit a lot of balls right at people."

Junior catcher Tom Murphy and junior outfielder Matt Pollock led Buffalo offensively during the trip. Over the first four games the two combined to hit five home runs, six doubles, and two triples. Despite their offensive output, the whole team stepped up when needed.

"There were days where guys would struggle and guys in the back half of the order or the front half of the order would pick them up," Torgalski said. "Every day it seemed like a different guy was getting three or four hits and really seeing the ball. That's a sign of a good team: When you have some of your better players struggle a little bit and you have other guys picking them up."

Torgalski thought that his pitchers threw better as the week went on. He was particularly impressed with freshman Anthony Magovney who threw six scoreless innings against Towson and senior Kevin Hughes who threw five innings against St. Joes before he got hurt and was forced to leave. Torgalski also applauded Jeff Thompson, who pitched well enough against a strong Villanova team to have earned the win.

The Bulls' next game will be a conference one, as they will head to Central Michigan (8-12) on Friday. First pitch is at 3 p.m.

Spring Break Scoreboard:

Buffalo-8, Coppin State-1

Buffalo-27, LIU Brooklyn-13

Buffalo-8, Towson-6

Buffalo-16, UMBC-8

Buffalo-6, La Salle-7

Buffalo-2, St. Joseph's-5

Buffalo-4, Villanova-5

Email: sports@buffalo.edu