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Baseball suffers winless weekend against Penn, Columbia

After doubleheader postponed by rain to start weekend, Bruno drops four consecutive games

After splitting consecutive doubleheaders with Ivy foes Cornell and Princeton and coming on the heels of impressive wins against Georgetown and George Mason, the baseball team suffered a major setback this weekend, as it was swept by both Penn and Columbia.


“We obviously did not play our best,” said Head Coach Grant Achilles.


The games with Columbia originally scheduled for Saturday had to be postponed after field conditions were deemed unplayable, making the Sunday tilts with Penn the first of the weekend for the Bears (6-17, 2-6 Ivy). Penn (12-9, 7-1) started out with a four-run first inning and never looked back, finishing the first game on top 13-2. Eddie Fitzpatrick ’15 started the game but gave up eight earned runs in 4.2 innings, walking four while only striking out one. The Quakers mashed five home runs on the day, including two from second baseman Ryan Mincher.


The second game went exactly like the first for Brown, with Penn adding three more home runs to its weekend total before beating the Bears down by a final score of 14-2. Reid Anderson ’18 made the start and fared a little better than his senior counterpart, giving up five earned runs in four innings.


Lions first baseman Austin Bossart registered five RBIs in the game, while Brown countered with Will Marcal ’15 and Robert Henry ’17, who each had one RBI. Brian Ginsberg ’18 got the start at shortstop for Tim McKeithan ’16, who had been struggling at the plate, and went 1-for-3 on the day with a run scored.


After a postponement, a pushback and a relocation to URI, Brown finally took the field against Columbia (14-10, 7-1) Monday for the first part of its doubleheader. Unfortunately for Bruno, the weekend trend continued: Taylor Wright ’15 let up four earned in 5.1 innings, and the Bears’ offense was unable to get anything going in an 8-0 loss. Dante Bosnic ’18 entered in relief and gave up multiple earned runs for the first time all season while walking one batter and striking out two.


The theme continued in the second game, with Columbia capitalizing on a six-run first to hand the Bears their fourth loss of the weekend. Max Ritchie ’17 failed to record an out before being pulled for Austin French ’16, who struck out nine batters in 4.1 innings of work. One run in three consecutive innings — culminating in a home run by Marcal — cut the deficit in half, but the Lions touched up French and Dave St. Lawrence ’15 in the fifth and sixth innings to put the game out of reach, eventually winning 11-3. 


It was a poor showing for Brown pitching over the four games, as 11 different Bears gave up nine home runs, 44 runs and 43 hits combined. And it was arguably a worse performance by the offense, which mustered a paltry eight runs and only ten extra base hits over the two-day span.


“(Columbia and Penn) threw the ball really well,” Achilles said. “It’s tough offensively when you put yourself in a hole — hitters try to do too much. It didn’t show up on the stat sheet, but we got the barrel on the ball a lot. Unfortunately we just didn’t produce.”


Achilles acknowledged his team’s struggles but recalled the team’s Ivy-opening weekend as a reason for optimism.


“It’s a tough league, but we have a week’s worth of work ahead of us,” he said. “We’ve had good games individually, so hopefully we can put that together and be a different team this weekend than last weekend and even when we won two Ivy games two weekends ago.”


The Bears will host UMass Lowell for a solitary game Wednesday before welcoming Harvard to College Hill for four games this weekend.

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