On a beautiful day at LeLacheur park, the UMass-Lowell River Hawks were looking to enjoy Easter with a sweep of the Stony Brook Seawolves. However, the visitors had other ideas, as they took the final game of the series 4-1.
Good pitching was the story of this one and the Seawolves got it from Brett Clark who entered this start with an 8.45 ERA. This is not what you would expect from the pre-season pitcher of the year in American East. The River Hawks got solid starting pitching as well from Steve Xirinachs, who despite giving up four earned runs in 4.2 innings pitched, gave his team a chance to win on Saturday.
Stony Brook scored first in the 3rd when Toby Handley led off with a walk, was sacrificed to second by Brandon Janofsky and then came home on a double down the RF line by Bobby Honeyman, 1-0 Seawolves. The River Hawks tied the game in the bottom of the 3rd. Chris Sharpe reached on a fielding error by SS Jeremy Giles, moved to third on a single to CF by Oscar Marchena, and after a strikeout Colby Maiola, came through with a base hit to RF scoring Sharpe to tie the game at 1-1.
In the fourth, the Seawolves struck for two vs Xirinachs. Andrew Gazzola got things started with a single to RF and he scored on a booming double to LF by Michael Wilson, after a sac bunt moved him to third Sean Buckhout beat out an infield hit up the middle scoring Wilson, 3-1 visitors.
Stony Brook finished the scoring in the 5th on a HR by Dylan Resk, his 8th of the season over the wall in LF, 4-1 Stony Brook.
Clarke was able to pitch into the six inning but he ran into trouble by giving up back to back base hits to Nick Barry and Ben Prada. It would force Seawolves Coach Matt Senk to go to his bullpen. In came Aaron Pinto who would get leadoff hitter Chris Sharpe to fly out to LF to end the threat.
From there Pinto was real good finishing the game to get his first save of the season going 3.1 innings and giving the team its first win when they needed a save.
After the game UMass Lowell coach Ken Harring said his team ” just did not swing the bats today” he credited Clark with giving Stony Brook a good starting outing. Although he would have liked to have swept the series, Harring was happy with winning the series.
The River Hawks are now 18-13 7-4 in conference play and get back to work on Tuesday with a twin-bill vs Brown. For Stony Brook they improved to 17-16 5-4 in league play.
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