Merrimack College Wins Seventh Straight, 9-5 Over UMass Lowell

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Calling this a “huge week’ for his team, UMass Lowell (11-18) head coach Nick Barese watched his team begin the week on the wrong foot. The Merrimack College Warriors (14-17) have been playing good baseball of late. On Tuesday afternoon, they kept that up by scoring seven runs in the first three innings of the game and riding that to a 9-5 win over the River Hawks. They have now won seven in a row.

The top four hitters in the Warriors lineup did most of the damage. Christian Gemelli, Dawson Bryce, Hayden Bond, and Frankie Ferrentino, went a combined 7-for-19 with 6 RBI, 6 runs scored, and also hit two home runs. On the mound, Merrimack head coach Brian Murphy used nine pitchers with seven of them throwing only one inning. It was a formula that worked for the Warriors. What did not work for the River Hawks was their starting pitcher Jacob Jette. After the game, Coach Barese said: “He is not overpowering and needs to command his breaking pitches better so he does not get into fastball counts.” Because when he did, the Warriors hitters hunted them down. Case in point, the very first pitch of the game was a fastball that Gemelli got in the middle of the strike zone and hit it off the jumbotron for his 6th home run of the season 1-0 Merrimack.

The second inning was Jette’s (1-2) downfall. The Warriors would bat around, scoring five runs and knocking Jette out of the game. His line of 1.2 IP, 7 hits, 6 earned runs, 1 strikeout, and a HR was not good. He fell behind too many hitters and paid for it every time. Cavan Brady (2-for-5, 2 RBI), Gemelli, Bond, and Ferrentino all had RBI hits in the inning. Merrimack tacked on another run in the third off of relief pitcher Kevin Zarnoch to take a 7-0 lead through three innings.

Meanwhile, the Warriors pitching staff was mowing down UMass Lowell hitters. They had a no-hitter alive after 4.2 innings. With two down in the fifth, Roddy Hernandez stopped that with a single to center field. One of two hits on the day for Hernandez. As is the case when you decide to use this many pitchers as Merrimack did, not all of them will have their best stuff. In the sixth, the River Hawks started to string some at-bats together that got them back in the game. They batted around in the inning, till an RBI hit from Matt Tobin off of Warriors relief pitcher James Borsan scored their first run. A bases-loaded walk to catcher Jake Fitzgibbons made it a 7-2 game. After another pitching change by Merrimack, Hernandez singled to center field off Campbell Cassidy to make it a 7-3 score.

UMass Lowell got a shutdown inning from Andres Hulfachor in the seventh and went back to scoring more runs. Runs batted in hits from Connor Kelly and Brandon Fish (2-for-4, 1 RBI) off of Cassidy and Dawson Logie made it a 7-5 game. The inning could have been bigger for the River Hawks, but two foul pop-outs to Warriors catcher Ferrentino ended the threat. With the River Hawks now back in the game, Coach Barese went back to his pen and called on LJ Keevan to keep the game where it was.

Unfortunately, he did not. After a one-out single by Bryce, Keevan got Bond to strike out looking. Ferrentino came to the plate with two down and a man on. He took Keevan off the jumbotron in left for a two-run HR to give his team some breathing room at 9-5 in the eight. The home run was Ferrentino’s sixth of the year and he now has 24 runs batted in. The River Hawks would not challenge the relief pitching of Logis and Jack Collins in the eighth and ninth innings and would lose this one 9-5. Colby Barker, the first of the seven pitchers, picked up the win, and is now 2-1.

UMass Lowell will continue non-league play on Wednesday when they face Stonehill. Merrimack will now get ready for conference play when they host Delaware State over the upcoming weekend.