While some Brown students were vacationing in Cancun or Miami, the baseball team spent its spring break grinding its way through a 10-day, 11-game road trip against tough squads in South Carolina, New Jersey and New York.
The Bears played well enough to finish the trip 6-5, but they also started their Ivy League season with a disappointing 2-2 record, following a dramatic sweep of Princeton by dropping two one-run games at Cornell. The team's overall record is now 7-13.
After a six-day swing through South Carolina, the Bears opened their Ivy League season with a doubleheader at Princeton, last year's league champions. The first game was a pitcher's duel between Brown ace Jeff Dietz '08, Collegiate Baseball's Ivy League Preseason Pitcher of the Year and the Tigers' Steve Miller. Both starters pitched solid seven-inning complete games, but Dietz, who gave up just two runs and five hits while striking out six, was slightly better in helping the Bears to a 4-2 victory. The Bears scored a pair of runs in the second and the fourth innings. Shortstop Matt Nuzzo '09 went 3-for-3 at the plate, starting both rallies with singles.
"Dietz pitched a great game," said Head Coach Marek Drabinski. "We got some timely hits and played very well after that."
After a baseball purist's dream game, the second match between the Bears and Tigers was a messier affair. Starting pitcher James Cramphin '07 had a rocky start, giving up six runs, four earned, in six innings, while Princeton starter Christian Staehely held the Bears to just two runs in his seven innings. Going into the top of the ninth, the Bears trailed 8-3 and, as Drabinski said, "looked like we had no business being in that game."
What happened next resembled something out of a Little League game. After the first four Brown batters of the inning walked, a wild pitch scored rightfielder Adjatay Nyadrjoh '07, trimming the lead to three. Dietz then hit a two-run double before Nuzzo tied the game with an RBI single. After two more batters reached base, Nuzzo, who went 8-for-9 on the day to raise his batting average to team-leading .352, scored on Robert Papenhause's '09 bases-loaded sacrifice fly - the first out of the inning - to give Brown its first lead of the game.
The Bears would score five more runs that inning, thanks to an RBI single by Nyadrjoh, in his second plate appearance of the inning, and catcher Devin Thomas's '07 two-run double. The Bears wound up sending 16 batters to the plate in the top of the ninth alone, and Princeton aided the rally with three errors and a hit batsman.
"It was probably one of the most exciting games I've ever been a part of," Thomas said. "We were flying pretty high after the game."
Unfortunately, the offensive momentum didn't carry over to the next day, when Brown faced Cornell in Ithaca, N.Y. Right-hander Will Weidig '10 pitched a splendid, six-inning complete game, giving up just two runs, but he took a tough loss as a trio of Big Red pitchers held Bruno to just one run on four hits over seven innings. Drabinski said it was a frustrating game, especially since the Bears stranded 11 runners.
"There were a couple of calls that were kind of fluky and odd, but we had many chances in the first three innings, and we only got one (run) in," he said.
Sunday's second game was postponed to Monday because of rain, but the extra day didn't help the Bears' situational hitting. Brown took an early 1-0 lead after centerfielder Steve Daniels '09 led off the game with a double and scored after a steal and a throwing error on the catcher, but Cornell scored two runs in the bottom of the inning, thanks to the Bears' own throwing error. The two teams then traded runs in the fifth, sixth and seventh innings to give Cornell a 5-4 lead, which ended up being the final score as the Bears could not manage a rally in the last two innings. Starter Alex Silverman '08 took the loss, giving up four runs, two earned, over 5 2/3 innings. The team stranded the tying run on third three times in the game.
With the Cornell games in mind, Drabinski said the modus operandi of the week will be situational hitting.
"So all we're going to do (this week) is suicide bunt, hit and run, situation hitting," he said. "Cornell forced our hand."
The team fared a little better on the South Carolina road trip, facing teams that have played about twice the games Brown has played. The Bears took three of four against Charleston Southern University (13-22) and The Citadel (17-11). Drabinski said the only low point of the trip was the 7-3 loss to Division II Francis Marion University.
The trip "was definitely a positive," Thomas said. "We were able to beat some pretty good teams."
The Bears are scheduled to travel to Kingston today to play a doubleheader with the University of Rhode Island, but the forecast calls for one-to-two inches of rain, and Drabinksi said the game may be rescheduled. Brown hosts Columbia and the University of Pennsylvania in a pair of doubleheaders this weekend.
