Baseball Downs UMass 4-2 in Home Opener
BOX SCORE
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STORRS, Conn.
(March 24, 2008)
— Freshman Mike Olt's (Branford, Conn.) RBI double plated the game
winning run as the University of Connecticut baseball team downed
Massachusetts, 4-2, on Monday afternoon at J.O. Christian Field in
Storrs in the Huskies' 2008 season home opener.
The Huskies up their mark to 9-10
on the year with the win while the Minutemen dip to 2-8.
Four Husky hurlers combined on a
strong effort against UMass as junior Matt McDonald (Dartmouth, N.S.),
sophomore Doug
Jennings (Pompton Plains, N.J.), junior Erik Turgeon (Palm Harbor, Fla.)
and senior Matt Karl (Wallingford, Conn.) held the Minutemen to a total of
two runs on six hits with just one walk.
UConn opened the scoring in the
home half of the second inning when sophomore Peter Fatse (Hampden, Mass.)
drew a one out walk, stole second and came across to score on a
bloop single into right field by freshman Mike Nemeth (Washington, N.J.).
UMass took a short-lived 2-1 lead in the top of
the third inning when Kyle Multner sent the first pitch he saw high
over the newly-shortened 330-foot fence in right field. The bottom
of the frame saw UConn take the lead for good with a pair of
unearned runs. Freshman Pierre LePage (Wolcott, Conn.) started it off
innocently enough with one out when a poor throw by UMass' Jim
Macdonald pulled first baseman Andy Tuetken off of the bag. LePage
stole second base and, with UMass second baseman Adam Tempsta
cheating to his right to hold LePage on second, freshman Elliot Glynn (Los
Alamitos, Calif.) guided a ground single through the vacant right
side of the infield to plate LePage and knot the score at 2-2. Glynn
also stole second and came in to score the eventual game-winning run
when Olt ripped a two-out two-strike double to the gap in right
center.
The Huskies
tacked on an insurance run an inning later as junior Matt Burnett
(Endicott, N.Y.) sent a leadoff single through the left side of
UMass' infield, advanced to second on junior Dale Brannon's (St.
Petersburg, Fla.) sacrifice bunt, moved to third on a ground out by
senior Gordon Stevens (Vista, Calif.) and crossed the plate when LePage
lined a single over the head of Macdonald.
UConn's
pitching took care of business from there. McDonald started the
contest but lasted just two batters before succumbing to an injury
on his first offering to the third hitter of the game. Jennings
threw 4.1 innings of relief, allowing two runs on three hits,
fanning two and issuing a single walk. Turgeon threw three innings
of shutout two-hit relief and Karl yielded just a single as he
retired the Minutemen in the ninth to pick up his second save of the
year.
Mike Dicato
admirably threw 7.2 innings on the mound for UMass, allowing two
earned runs and fanning a trio of Huskies.
The Huskies
return to action on Tuesday when they travel to Worcester to face
Holy Cross at 3:00 p.m.
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