The baseball team powered its way through the weekend series with Hamilton, hitting seven homeruns in the abbreviated two-game series.
The Cardinals and the Continentals were only able to fit in two of the three scheduled games after rain cancelled the first two days of play. The teams had originally planned to play one game on Friday and a doubleheader on Saturday, but the weather did not cooperate, pushing the games back to Sunday, with the rescheduling of the third game still to be announced.
After falling behind 6-0 through two innings in game one, the Cardinals mounted a furious comeback. Daniel Poniatowski ’08 started the scoring with a grand slam, the first of four Cardinal dingers in the game. After taking the lead with three runs in the sixth, Wesleyan tacked on five insurance runs in the seventh, including back-to-back homeruns from Joe Giaimo ’11 and Chris Simpson ’08. Drew Dominguez ’10 also homered in the inning, and Lou Gabel ’08 sealed the 12-6 victory with a scoreless bottom of the seventh.
Game two was a different story, as the Cardinals jumped out to an early 3-0 lead in the second inning, on RBI singles from Poniatowski and Alex Early ’09. The Continentals fought back with two runs in the bottom of the inning, before Simpson’s second homerun of the day made it 4-2 Cardinals. Dominguez later added his second homerun of the day, extending the lead to 5-2.
The Continentals came back with one run in the fifth and three in the sixth to take the lead at 6-5. Simpson then came up and hit his third homerun of the day, a two-run shot to help Wesleyan regain the lead. It was short lived, however, as the Continentals scored three runs in the eighth to take the lead and the game, winning 9-7.
Simpson’s three homeruns increased his season total to seven, one short of the all-time Wesleyan single season record, most recently accomplished by Alexander Brooks ’06 in 2004.
The 1-1 weekend moved the Cardinals record to 11-13, 4-4 in the NESCAC West. Amherst, who the Cardinals took one out of three from, sits at the top with a 6-2 conference record, followed by Williams at 3-2. Amherst travels to take on 1-5 Middlebury this weekend, while Williams gets 2-3 Hamilton at home.
The Cardinals have a weekend off of NESCAC West play, but will take on Bowdoin and MIT in a pair of doubleheaders at home this weekend, before a very important three-game series with Williams next weekend.
Bowdoin travels down on Saturday, with the first pitch being thrown at 1 p.m. The two teams met at Bowdoin last year, splitting a doubleheader.
Sunday brings the annual “Tech v. Tech” matchup, with the teams coming off a 14-11 slugfest won by MIT in 2007. First pitch on Sunday is also at 1 p.m.
Leave a Reply