ARLINGTON, Virginia – The Maryland Eastern Shore baseball team once again showed that they can swing the bat well, stringing along eleven hits on the road against George Washington University. Despite those runners, the Hawks (1-11) stranded ten on base in a 10-3 loss to the Colonials (7-10).
"We are still struggling to find timely hits with men on base," head coach
Brian Hollamon said. "We hit the ball well but too many opportunities were wasted with runners in scoring position."
Taking the bump in his first career college start,
Alec Greenblatt (0-2) went two innings and gave up four runs with one earned. In the first inning Greenblatt gave up an early single to Colonials shortstop Steve Ditomaso, who then stole second before a single to left field drove him in.
The Hawks struck back in the top of the second by stringing along early-count singles by
Ryan Howe and
Brian Cordell before advancing to third off a
Marcus Brown fly ball to right field. Continuing his hot bat from the leadoff position,
Derrick Mayes II knocked a two-run single to center to drive in the runners.
"Derrick's been solid at the top of the order since (Andrew) Revels has been out for us," Hollamon said. "He's been hitting the ball well, running well, all while playing great defense in left."
It didn't take long for the Colonials to retake the lead in the bottom of the inning despite Greenblatt seemingly working himself out of a jam with runners on second and third. With two outs, the sophomore forced a grounder to short but the throw was dropped by first baseman
Marcus Brown and both Colonials scored as they took off on contact to make it 3-2.
Ditomaso struck again a batter later with a double to drive in the Cade Fergus, adding to George Washington's tally, making it 4-2.
"Errors continue to plague us even at this point in the season," Hollamon said. "We had some time off since Radford but it's simple mental mistakes that we shouldn't be making at this point."
The Hawks had ample opportunity to score with runners on in almost every inning the rest of the game but either swung through the ball or hit into soft infield contact to end the innings.
On the mound in relief for the Hawks, freshman
Ryan Davis was able to go three innings while giving up two in his last inning of action before being relieved by senior
John Killmon. Killmon pitched two innings, giving up just one walk, giving him 5 IP on the season with no runs.
It's the beginning of conference play starting on Friday (March 18) as the Shore welcomes MEAC foe Norfolk State University to Perdue Stadium for a four-game set. Game one is slated for 3 p.m., games two and three will be a doubleheader starting at noon on Saturday (March 19) and Sunday (March 20) will be the getaway game starting at noon as well.
Follow along with the action on Twitter at @eshawksbase.
