Baseball | Bantams sweep Jumbos with pitching, late scoring

    They say that pitching wins baseball games, and that's what Trinity proved against Tufts this weekend. Well, with some help from a walk-off home run.
    The Bantams swept the Jumbos in Hartford, Conn. over the weekend on the strength of three complete-game pitching performances. The closest game came in the second half of a doubleheader on Sunday when the score was tied 1-1 before Trinity's senior co-captain catcher Sean Killeen led off the bottom of the ninth with a game-winning home run. The losses drop the Jumbos to 2-4 in the NESCAC competition and 5-13 overall, while the Bantams improve to 6-0 in the conference and 15-3 overall.
    "It was tough, especially to come so close [in the last game]," junior co-captain Alex Perry said. "[Senior pitcher Mike] Stefaniak pitched a heck of a game; to lose like that was tough. It just topped off the whole series. It was definitely a little down, but we have a game [today], so we have a quick turnaround and can get ready for that."
    Stefaniak pitched eight innings of six-hit ball while striking out four against a Trinity offense that leads the NESCAC in on-base percentage and is third with 8.56 runs per game. But he was matched inning-for-inning by Trinity sophomore Andrew Janiga, who went the full nine innings while also allowing six hits and tallying four punchouts.         "I think the coaching staff did a great job with the scouting report, and Perry called a great game," Stefaniak said. "Every time I hit my spot, they didn't hit it. But they're a great team at hitting mistakes, and when I made one, they hit it."
    The Jumbos got on the board first in the top of the fourth when freshman second baseman Sam Sager hit a one-out double and junior first baseman Corey Pontes hit another two batters later to drive him in. Unfortunately for Tufts, the Bantams answered right back in the bottom of the frame, as senior second baseman Ryan Piacentini led off the inning with a solo home run to tie it up.
    From that point on, Tufts would not score again, but it was not for lack of opportunities. The team managed to get a runner on third with two outs in the sixth, seventh and ninth innings, but each time, he failed to score. With the score tied heading into the bottom of the ninth, Killeen, who was first team All-NESCAC and All-New England last year, hit his fourth homer of the year to tie him for the conference lead and win the game.
    "That was just a missed location," Stefaniak said. "It was supposed to be away, and it got too much of the plate. Believe me, I wish I could have that pitch back."
    Before dropping the second game of the twinbill, the Jumbos were not close to beating the Bantams. They lost the first game of the series on Saturday by a score of 7-1 and then dropped the next contest on Sunday 11-5. Trinity's starter on Saturday, junior Jeremiah Bayer, went nine innings, striking out nine and allowing six hits to improve to 5-0, while the Bantams' first starter on Sunday, freshman James Ramsey, allowed five runs on five hits and five walks over seven innings but struck out seven on his way to improving to 4-0.
    "It's just not playing as a team, not being able to do what needs to get done at the right time," Perry said. "Outside of the pitching, I thought we didn't really play team baseball. That's just kind of been how our season's been so far. We need to come together and play team ball and play how we're told and how we're coached, which we haven't done up to this point."
    Still, that's not to say that there were no positives to be taken out of the series.   
    "Hopefully we can use it as some sort of momentum," Stefaniak said. "We at least gave them a good game. We have another game [today], so hopefully we can get back on the winning track. We gave them a good game, but it would've been nice to win."
    Tufts will travel to Brandeis today at 3 p.m. and will then face NESCAC West opponent Middlebury in four games over the weekend. The Panthers are last in their division with a conference record of 1-4 and an overall mark of 6-7. The Jumbos last played them in 2006, when they lost all four contests — three by only one run.
    "We're not going to hold anything back going into these games," Perry said. "We're not going to keep the losses in the back of our minds. We're going to come out and attack them and hopefully come out with wins this weekend."