Baseball dominated Princeton 7-1 on the road before getting swept by conference rival Quinnipiac over the weekend.
It was a monumental week for Hawk’s senior third baseman Shaine Hughes, who joined an exclusive list becoming just the 16th player in Monmouth history to record 200 career hits. Hughes reached the milestone on Thursday during the route of Princeton where he collected a multi-hit game in a two-for-five effort with three RBIs and a run scored.
Junior pitcher James Kelly made his third career start in the first of a busy four games in four days stretch for MU. It was a solid outing for Kelly who threw two hitless innings before allowing an unearned run in the third that tied the game. The bullpen took over from there, combing for 6.2 innings of scoreless, one-hit work between three different relievers.
“It was a very nice team win today,” said Head Coach Dean Ehehalt. “We got exceptional pitching from all four guys.”
Sophomore infielder Danny Long eventually secured the lead for Monmouth in the sixth with an RBI fielder’s choice and steal of second that made the score 3-1. The Hawks never looked back from there as they tacked on two more runs in both the seventh and eighth thanks to doubles from Hughes and freshman first baseman Ryan Steckline.
The bats cooled off against Quinnipiac, however, as the Hawks scored just three runs in each game, which wasn’t enough to avoid the road sweep.
Sophomore catcher Zach Schild, however, did an excellent job of setting the tone early for the MU lineup by singling in the first run of the game in two of the three weekend matchups.
After an off day Friday, senior right-handed pitcher Ricky Dennis took the rubber in the series opener on Saturday going six innings while allowing seven runs on eight hits with only one of them earned. Three errors by the Hawks defense resulted in a deflating 8-3 loss to kick off the series.
“Our inability to make a few routine plays in the fifth inning really hurt,” Ehehalt said. “We need to bounce back tomorrow and play our style of baseball.”
The Monmouth fielding did bounce back in the first game of Sunday’s doubleheader playing errorless baseball in a tight 3-4 loss.
Freshman John Martin made his first career start allowing three runs on four hits in 3.1 innings of work. The MU bats gave him an early 2-0 lead on RBIs from Schild and senior infielder Justin Trochiano. After the bullpen threw nearly three innings of clean work for the Hawks, junior infielder Jordan McCrum took the loss giving up a walk-off single in the seventh.
Offense was hard to find for the Hawks lineup who only reached home once in the final six innings of the ball game.
Monmouth fell back into their sloppy defensive ways for the series finale committing another three errors in the 3-4 loss.
After Long and Hughes helped tie and eventually take the lead in the seventh, the Bobcats fought back to take the lead in the eighth off of Hawks senior right-handed pitcher Austin Counsellor. The nightcap went the distance and then some knotted at three until Counsellor gave up the walk-off single to complete the series sweep.
“It was a tough day today,” Ehehalt said after the doubleheader. “We battled and came up short twice.”
8-17 Monmouth will now return home for a non-conference game against Columbia on Wednesday at 3:00 p.m.
PHOTO TAKEN by Karlee Sell
