Good and bad baseball, as Bullets split with Shoremen
By Sean Brower, Staff Writer
Senior Luke Lawrence batted four hits for the Bullets’ doubleheader against Washington College.
The Gettysburg baseball team split a doubleheader with the Washington College Shoremen, on April 16. Gettysburg took the first game 6-4, while Washington took the nightcap 12-2.
During the course of six hours, two very different games were played. Game one was a back and forth affair, with the two teams tying and taking the lead twice each.
“[I] feel pretty good. I mean, [I] don’t feel too good about the last game, but…it’s pretty good, considering our pitching was stretched. So overall, it was a good day,” said senior center fielder Luke Lawrence, who went a combined 4-for-7 on the day.
The Bullets opened the game one scoring in the top of the second. Senior second baseman Steve Wright, junior left fielder Connor Tom, and senior designated hitter notched singles to load the bases for junior shortstop John Convery. With only one out, he delivered with a sacrifice fly, driving in Wright.
However, the Shoremen struck back in the bottom of the inning. With one out, sophomore catcher Wes Robertson doubled. He scored on a single by junior first baseman Evan Hirschbaum to right field, where senior Andy Kelley could not handle the ball, allowing Hirschbaum to advance all the way to third on the error.
Junior Eric Brown, who threw six innings, allowing three runs (two earned) then threw a wild pitch, allowing Hirschbaum to score the go ahead run. Washington added an insurance run in the bottom of the fourth, via an RBI double by Hirschbaum to drive in first-year third baseman Aaron Barclay.
But in top of the fifth, Lawrence drew a leadoff walk, followed by sophomore third baseman Logan Sneed reaching on an error by sophomore second baseman Mike Pugh. Two batters later, senior first baseman Henry Klimowicz singled in Lawrence. Senior second baseman Steve Wright then grounded out to plate Sneed to tie the game.
Lawrence cracked another single to lead off the top of the seventh and advanced to second on a sacrifice bunt by Sneed. Junior catcher Will Anderson then singled to put the Bullets up 4-3. But this new lead would not last for long. In the bottom of the inning, junior center fielder Bryan Baquer doubled home first-year left fielder TC Conrad.
Gettysburg pulled ahead for good in the top of the ninth. Convery reached on an error by Barclay and then advanced to second on a bunt by Lawrence. Sneed then doubled down to put the Bullets up 5-4. Two batters later, Klimowicz doubled to give Gettysburg an insurance run.
In the bottom of the ninth, the Shoremen put the tying runs on base. With no outs, junior
Aaron Bezio came on for the save. He retired Baquer, sophomore designated hitter Matt Tancredi, and Barclay to secure the win.
Game two was a one-sided affair, with Washington dominating the entire time.
Already leading 1-0 in the bottom of the fourth, Baquer, Barclay, Robertson, and Hirschbaum hit consecutive singles to lead off the inning, make the score 2-0, and load the bases. First-year Sam Dobbins relieved junior Jonathan Lucido and gave up the games’ biggest blow, a grand slam, off the bat of junior right fielder Charlie Meder. When inning was over, the Shoremen led 7-0, via a sacrifice fly by Baquer to score D’Ostilio.
The lopsided game resulted in Gettysburg head coach John Campo replacing nearly the entire team’s defense in the bottom of the 6th and 7th. In the former, sophomore Tyler Sadowski replaced Anderson behind the plate. In the latter, first-year Brendan Wright went to first; sophomores Chuck Probst, Andrew Jacobson, and Josh Cubell went to second, third, and short, respectively. Junior Ellis Bloom went to left and first-year Charles Clark to right. The only starter to remain was Lawrence, in center.
But these changes hardly changed the momentum of the game, if at all. In the top of the 8th, Jacobson grounded into a bases loaded, no out double play to finally push a run across for the Bullets. However, junior pitcher Billy Griffin, who dominated the Bullets the entire game, shut them down, allowing no earned runs and struck out five. Fellow junior Tom Griffin replaced him and allowed a run, but secured the win for the Shoremen.
“Obviously, we wanted a sweep coming in here, but we understand we have to play five games in three days (referring to the April 15 game against Dickinson and April 17’s doubleheader against Swarthmore)…If we can come out of the weekend winning three out of four games, I think that will be great,” said Klimowicz.
