Spring fever was evident everywhere on campus this weekend as the student body soaked in beats in the April sun, but it was pennant fever that gripped Huskins Field on Friday and Saturday. The baseball team clinched the NESCAC East title, winning two out of three games against Bowdoin College. Tufts squeaked out an 8-7 victory on Friday afternoon before splitting two games on Saturday, losing 4-2 and winning 6-5.
"They were probably more of a middle of the pack team," senior Corey Dolich said of Bowdoin. "But they were a scrappy team, they had a tenacious heart that we have not seen in any of our other opponents."
In both wins, Tufts had to stave off late Polar Bear comebacks.
Tufts was 7-1 prior to the weekend, and needed two victories to top Trinity College's 9-3 mark and clinch first place. The Jumbos still would have had a chance to win the NESCAC East should they have lost all three games to Bowdoin, though it would have depended on the outcome of today's game against Bates.
After winning on Friday and losing the opener Saturday, the final game proved the most important.
In that contest, the pitching star was sophomore Dave Martin, who threw six innings, giving up one run on three hits to help stake the Jumbos to a 6-1 lead. Junior Dan Callahan was the offensive star all weekend, driving in three runs in Saturday's second game, including a home run. It was the fourth homer of the year for the NESCAC's leading hitter (.443 batting average), who also had seven RBIs on the weekend.
"He kept us in all the games this weekend," sophomore shortstop Brian Shapiro said of Callahan. "Homeruns, RBIs; he carried us."
Shapiro entered in relief to close it out in the seventh but ran into some problems. The
sophomore walked two of the first three batters he faced, and then gave up a three-run homer to
Bowdoin junior Seth Paradis. But Shapiro settled down after that to retire the next two hitters, collect his
second save of the weekend, and clinch the NESCAC East title for the Jumbos.
"I like closing," Shapiro said. "It gives me a chance to play shortstop. It's the best of both worlds; I get to play everyday and pitch."
The win wouldn't have mattered had the Jumbos managed a victory in an extremely close opener on Saturday.
In that game, junior pitcher Steve Lapham was a workhorse, throwing ten innings in the loss. Tufts jumped out to a 2-0 lead when Shapiro doubled and Ayers singled him in and then scored on an RBI groundout by senior Corey Dolich. Bowdoin evened the score in the fifth when Workman jacked a two-run homer to left.
Neither team scored again until the top of the tenth, when Polar Bear junior Randy Metzler drove in freshman T.J. Macleod. Metzler then scored on a Jumbo error. Bowdoin reliever Scott Boruchow allowed two Tufts base-runners in the bottom of the inning, but the Jumbos could not score.
In ten innings, Lapham gave up only eight hits, but suffered the loss.
"He definitely looked really great," Shapiro said of Lapham. "We wanted to get the win for him but we just couldn't get enough runs."
"The pitching was great," Dolich said. "You really can't ask for much more than they gave us this weekend. They were throwing strikes, doing what coach asked."
In Friday's game, sophomore Jon Lee threw eight and two-thirds innings to get the win. Through the eighth inning, Lee had given up only three runs, but ran into some trouble in the ninth. The Polar Bears got three runs on a bases-loaded double by freshman Andy Workman, and were within one run with a runner on second when Shapiro entered in relief to shut the door. Shapiro threw only one pitch, inducing a ground ball to end the game. It was his second save of the season.
Offensively, Callahan was the star for the Jumbos on Friday. Callahan went 3-3 with two homers and four RBIs. His three-run homer in the first gave the Jumbos the lead for good, and his solo shot in the fifth made the game 5-3. Sophomore Jon Herbert added two RBIs of his own, and sophomore Evan Zupancic knocked in a run on a double in the eighth.
Tufts has one more NESCAC East game, a home game against the Bates Bobcats this afternoon at 3:30. Since Tufts swept Trinity in three games this season, today's results will not affect the conference standings.
"We're still focusing on it like any game," Dolich said. "If we win then there is no doubt that we are the division champs. It's a 10-2 record against a 9-3 record. We want to win it outright."
