The baseball team (9-14 overall, 2-3 NESCAC East) needs a strong showing in its three-game series this weekend against the Trinity Bantams (10-11 overall, 2-4 NESCAC East) to climb up in the NESCAC East standings after a physically taxing week of out-of-conference games.
The team opened last weekend with a Saturday doubleheader at Wesleyan (15-5 overall, 3-0 NESCAC West). In the first game of the day, captain Henry Van Zant ’15 continued his impressive season, winning a pitchers duel against the Cardinals’ Gavin Pittore 1-0. The shutout earned him the NESCAC Pitcher of the Week award, improved his record to 4-1 and lowered his ERA to a team-leading 1.32.
Pittore was pitching a no-hitter going into the seventh and final inning until captain Aaron Rosen ’15 hit a leadoff single. Three batters later, Peter Cimini ’16 knocked Rosen in on a single to center field for what turned out to be the game-winning run.
While Van Zant has been one of the few bright spots for the pitching staff, Harry Ridge ’16 pitched well in the second leg of the double header, striking out four in five innings of work. Neither the impressive pitching nor the Polar Bears’ seventh-inning rally, which produced one run and forced a pitching change, were enough to tie Wesleyan’s three runs.
After just one day off, the team headed to St. Joesph’s College in Standish for what turned out to be a four-hour marathon of a game that the Polar Bears eventually lost 13-12.
St Joseph’s started the game with a five-run first inning, but the Polar Bears bounced back quickly with a six-run rally in the fourth fueled by doubles by Chad Martin ’16 and Buddy Shea ’15, for a 9-7 lead.
The lead was short lived though, as the Monks scored six runs over the next two innings. St. Josephs took a three-run lead into the eighth inning when, with two outs, Cimini knocked in Nicholas Sadler ’18 and Sean Mullaney ’17. After a pitching change, captain Erik Jacobsen ’15 grounded out to end the rally.
Bowdoin split the next day’s doubleheader at Husson University. The first leg of the seven-inning game was scoreless through eight and a half innings, when Bowdoin walked three straight batters in the bottom of the ninth before Brandon Grendreau hit a walk-off single for Husson.
Bowdoin’s batters came alive in Tuesday’s second game, scoring three runs in the first two innings, four in the fourth and one more in the sixth to take the 11-5 win.
Bowdoin welcomes Trinity at 3:30 p.m. today at its home-opener for the first game of the weekend series. The Polar Bears hope to take advantage of the NESCAC East last place Bantams to improve in the standings.