UMass Lowell and Stony Brook split a Saturday DH

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UMass Lowell head coach Ken Harring said it best when asked after Saturday’s doubleheader with Stony Brook about playing back-to-back twin bills. His answer was “it’s a blood bath” He would follow that up with, “your depth does get tested.” In the case of the Riverhawks (7-16, 6-8 in AE), that depth is young since no fall baseball was available to help these young players get into the swing of playing division one ball. It could be said that Lowell, like probably everyone else, is playing catch up. Coach Harring is not a man to makes excuses for his team and he is not about to start now. A day that got off to a good start with a game one 4-3 win, ended badly with a game two, 9-2 loss to Stony Brook (15-8,11-1 in AE). The Seawolves leave UMass Lowell having won another series after sweeping two games Friday. They will start division play next weekend winners of 10 of their last 11 games.

Game one was clearly the best part of the day for Lowell. They received good starting pitching from Senior, Collin Duffley, who picked up his first win of the season by going six innings, allowing five hits, three runs only one earned, one walk, and three strikeouts in the seven-inning game his offense staked him to an early lead by scoring single runs in both the second and fourth innings. In the second frame, an RBI double by Cedric Rose off of starter Brian Hermann scored Gerry Siracuse who was a perfect three-for-three in the game. In the fourth, Siracuse scored again. This time, it was on a double by Jimmy Sullivan, also three-for-three in the game, off of the second Stony Brook pitcher of the game Josh O’Neill. Coach Herring said, “we need to get Sullivan in the lineup more often because he is a good hitter.”

Duffley was moving along just nicely until the fifth. He would give up three runs to Stony Brook with only one being earned. That’s because of two Riverhawks errors that gave the Seawolves extra outs to play with and they cashed in on those mistakes. This is something that Harring said, “is becoming a theme of our team.” Lowell would bounce back and get the lead back in their half of the fifth. With two on and facing the third Seawolves hurler of the game, Brian Morrisey, Siracuse ripped a double to left that plated both runs and gave the Riverhawks the lead back at 4-3 after five. Duffley took care of the sixth, then turned the game over to Henry Furraro who was looking to redeem himself after a bad 10th inning of game two of Friday’s doubleheader. He uncorked two wild pitches that led to Stony Brook scoring the winning run. This time, he shut the door on the Seawolves to earn his second save of the season. The win by Lowell snapped a ten-game winning streak by the Seawolves and snapped a five game Riverhawk losing streak. O’Neill took the game one loss for Stony Brook.

Game two was completely different and it started on the mound as five Riverhawks pitchers combined to give up 11 hits, nine runs of which six were earned. They walked 10 Seawolves hitters and threw five wild pitches. Not a recipe for success. On the other side, Stony Brook got outstanding starting pitching from Nick DeGennaro (1-0) who was making his season debut for the team. He would go seven innings allowing four hits, two runs, and one earned. He would strike out 10 Lowell batters and walk only three. His only real mistake came to the third batter he faced in the first inning. DeGennaro hung a slider to Vinnie Martin who hit it over the scoreboard in right for his first home run of the season. It would give Lowell a 1-0 lead after one. From there, Stony Brook took advantage of Lowell’s not-so-good pitching. It started with Ryan Towle (0-2) who went 2.1 innings, six hits, four runs, two earned, walked two, fanned three, and threw two wild pitches. Towle’s replacements were no better. By game’s end, the Seawolves would score runs in five of the nine innings. They would also get a home run from center fielder John LaRocca, his first of the season in the seventh. Stony Brook won game two 9-2 and took three-of-four from Lowell.

UMass Lowell will hit the road next weekend to face Albany and will begin playing only teams in their division for the rest of the season. As the coach said afterward, “everything is still in front of us”. Starting next weekend we will find out if he is right.