Although the Bowdoin College Baseball Team had a great start in Florida, the team has hit a rough patch of late. The squad faced a very tough Trinity Bantams team in Hartford, Connecticut, over the weekend of March 31, dropping two out of three to the Bantams, 8-0 and 5-1, respectively.
The Bears salvaged the series with a confident 11-5 victory last Sunday in the continuation of a game that was stopped in the third inning on Saturday due to inclement weather. They came home to face the University of Southern Maine (USM) on Wednesday, losing a tight one, 6-4, in a game that was again shortened by outdoor conditions.
The Bears came into the first contest with Trinity, ranked second in the NESCAC, but the hot Bowdoin bats that were so dominant in Florida cooled off against a solid Trinity starting rotation. Junior Tim Kiely was brilliant against the Bears in a complete game shutout, finishing the day after, giving up only six hits and striking out nine. By the second inning of the game, the score was already 6-0 in favor of the Bantams, and not much changed from there on.
The Bantams were led at the plate by sophomore centerfielder Chandler Bernard, who had a three-run dinger in the second, while senior center-fielder Jared Lemieux battled for the Bears with three hits, including a double. Trevor Powers '06 was tagged with the loss, dropping him to 1-2 for the season.
The second game went much the same way for Bowdoin. The team's bats were silenced by Trinity's senior co-captain Greg Talpey, who tossed a six-hitter and didn't give up a single earned run in a seven-inning performance. The Bantam's junior second baseman Tim Bourdon finished with a pair of RBIs on a single and a sac fly. Trinity's two other runs came by way of singles from sophomore outfielder Steve Dilanian and first-year backstop Sean Kileen, and on a Bowdoin throwing error in the fifth. Ricky Leclerc '06 took the loss for the Bears in four innings of work.
Co-captain Chris McCann '07 was up front about the team's performance in the first two games.
"There's nothing else we can say except that we got beat in the first two games," he said. "They took us out of our style of play."
Senior Will Waldrop started on the hill for the Bears in the third game of the series. Pat Driscoll '08 took over for Bowdoin in the third inning, working a solid five innings and ultimately earning the win. Lemieux was again alive at the plate, getting two hits and scoring three runs. Sluggers Jon Koperniak '07 and Joe Berte '09 posted a pair of hits to the scoreboard for Bowdoin, while Leclerc stroked a three-run homer in the sixth inning that all but sealed the win for Bowdoin.
"I thought the team did an excellent job of regrouping to grab the final game of the series," Powers said. "We knew it was important to keep our chances alive and we did just that."
Senior Chris Bucci echoed Powers' sentiment.
"We went back to playing our brand of baseball in the third game," he said. "The bats came alive, the pitchers threw strikes, and we played good defense behind them."
Unfortunately, things did not go quite as well for the Bears against the USM on Wednesday in a game played in a frigid sleet storm. Waldrop had a decent outing, giving up only three runs in 5 1/3 innings of work. Mike Hickey also pitched well for USM, giving up only two runs in five innings.
With the game tied at 1-1 going into the fifth inning, Leclerc opened up a one-run lead for the Bears with an RBI single.
Ultimately, the weather was too much for the Bears. A number of walks in the top of the sixth led to a 6-2 USM advantage. The Bears clawed back for two runs in the bottom half of the inning, but it was too little too late as the game was called due to the conditions after only six innings.
It was a painful loss for the Bears, marred by a controversial play at third involving a questionable coach interference call and by the brutal Brunswick weather, acting as a 10th man for USM.
Bowdoin will face a very strong Tufts squad this weekend in a three-game home series. The Bears look to rebound with a string of wins that will put them very much back into contention in the NESCAC.
"I think we will bounce back well this weekend and show our resilience," Powers said.