Over spring break, the baseball team was hard at work, kicking off the season with a bicoastal thirteen-game road trip. The Cards traveled south to Georgia for the first five games of the trip, after which they traveled to California for the remaining eight. The team started slow, going 3-6 in the first nine games of the season before picking it up, sweeping a three-game series with UMass-Dartmouth before falling to the Division III powerhouse, Chapman University.
In the first games of the UMass-Dartmouth series, Wesleyan swung the bat powerfully and with confidence, piling up 16 hits in a 12-3 victory. Drew Dominguez ’09 and Chris Simpson ’08 led the way for the Cards. Dominguez went 4-for-6 including four RBIs and a run scored while Simpson went 3-for-5 including his second out-of-the-park blast of the season. Louis Gabel ’08 got his first win of the season with 6 1/3 effective innings pitched, giving up a mere three earned runs.
In the second match-up the following day, the Cards pulled out a much scrappier win. Wesleyan came up with a 4-3 victory off of a game-winning RBI in the eighth by Rob Coughlin ’07. The Cards had rallied from a 3-1 deficit with RBIs by Dan Poinatowski ’08 and Chris Arvanites ’09 in the sixth and eighth innings, respectively. Kit Tholen got the victory, giving up a stingy five hits and a single earned run.
The Cards pulled out the victory in the final game, a 12-11 shoot where Garret Lamborn ’09 drove in the winning run in the top of the ninth inning. John DelGiudice ’07 hit particularly well, going 3-for-5 in the game. Kyle Lee ’07 got the win in relief of Dusty Mones ’09 despite giving up five runs in the eighth.
“I personally was having a terrible game against UMass until I got a chance in the ninth,” Lamborn said. “I was just grateful that the team played so well as a whole and kept us in it.”
The sweep came at a great time. The Cards were 3-6 at the time, and desperately wanted to get back to .500.
“It’s difficult to beat a team three games in a row, whether it’s a strong team or a weaker one,” Simpson said. “The UMass victories were big. If we expect to be a good team, we need to sweep teams like that.”
The Cards, however, could not maintain their winning ways against Chapman University the following day. Chapman, ranked second in the country, came ready to play, going up 10-0 in the first two innings and never looking back. The final score was a humbling 19-0.
Despite the tough loss, the experience was not a total loss for the Cards.
“They’re an amazing team and it was unfortunate that we didn’t even give them a challenge, it was very disappointing,” Simpson said. “However I personally think it helped guys realize that we need to approach every game with the same relaxed and confident intensity, no matter who the opponent is. ”
This weekend the Cards will meet Amherst in a much-anticipated three game series. The first game will be played Friday, March 30 at home, followed by a double header at Amherst on Saturday.
“Everyone is excited to be back home and begin conference play,” DelGiudice said. “Obviously the Amherst series will be big and I have no doubts that we are prepared for them. Getting a couple wins against them will put us in great shape to achieve our goals of winning the Little Three title and ultimately the NESCAC championship.”
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