With NESCAC West rivals Williams College in town, Wesleyan’s men’s baseball took the field looking to flaunt an improved defense that held them back in the previous week against Tufts. The defense showed signs of improvement, as the men took one of the three weekend games from the Ephs.
Saturday featured a home doubleheader against the Ephs. Once again, the Wesleyan faithful packed the hill, hoping to catch a glimpse of the superstars in red and black, and the first game worked its way into extra innings.
Will Gordon ’05 started on the mound for the Cardinals and pitched seven strong innings. Tied at five and headed for extra innings, Gordon surrendered back-to-back triples. He was quickly relieved by Charlie Munzig ’07, who was unable to stop the bleeding in the extra frame as the Ephs amassed eight runs in the top half of the eighth. The Cardinals could not answer and regrouped, looking to take the second game of the day. Hoping to contain the Williams offense, the unflappable Tom “The Flapper” Bloss ’05 took the mound. Bloss did his job, as he did not allow a run to Williams in his first two innings of work. He was relieved by a successive wave of Cardinal hurlers, the first of which was Tim Truncelito ’08, in the third inning. Truncelito eventually gave way to Charlie Munzig ’07, Kyle Lee ’07, Kit Tholen ’08, and Andre Sternberg ’07.
Bloss’s departure from the game was spurred by an onslaught of Wesleyan offense, as the Cardinals pounded out four runs in the first and an unprecedented fifteen runs in the second, by far the most runs the team has put up in any inning all season. The team cruised to a 25-11 victory and still had the fresh arm of ace Tom Bloss ready for Sunday’s rubber match in Williamstown.
Without the screaming of the 600 fans that bore witness to Wesleyan’s brilliance on Saturday, the men had a tougher time showing off their bats, remaining close to the Ephs as they entered the third inning of play trailing 2-0. In the bottom half of the third inning, the Ephs churned out four runs, only one of which was earned. Sternberg, who threw well, relieved Bloss, and Tholen made another quality appearance in relief, but their performances were lost due to an inability to produce runs. The men did not score until the fifth inning on a Mac Clonan ’05 RBI double, and the impotent bats led to a 13-3 loss.
“Really beating up on Williams was a great feeling,” said Rob Coughlin ’07, who put up 7 RBI in the second game of the series. “It was unfortunate that we couldn’t carry that feeling over into Sunday’s game, because every game against a rival like Williams is a big one. We showed that we can really hit the ball though, and that’s important for us and our opponents to know for the duration of our league schedule.”
Despite improved hitting, the main problem for the Cardinals is still their defense. In 22 games played this season, only one has been error-free. This has been exacerbated by the amount of errors being committed, with the Cardinals averaging over 3 errors per game and opponents committing just 1.59 per game. This discrepancy has put pressure on the offense to make up for defense with the bats, which the team has been doing to some extent.
The Cardinals will travel to face non-conference rival Springfield College on Tuesday, and the men hope to tune up their defense before making the trek to Middlebury on Friday for a three-game weekend series.
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