The Monmouth Hawks traveled down to Maryland this past weekend to play a three- game in-conference series against the Towson Tigers, taking two wins home to help them climb to a 3-3 record in the CAA.
The series started on Friday, Mar. 28, with a 7-1 loss to the Tigers. The Hawks only run coming from a sac-fly to center field from senior designated hitter, Jay Bant. Monmouth’s lefty starter, junior Tommy Kent, struggled in his outing against the Tigers. Kent allowed seven runs, four being earned, off seven hits in 4.1 innings. In his 87 pitches, Kent gave up a walk, a hit-by-pitch, and had two wild pitches. Towson took advantage of Kent’s struggles early on. In the first inning junior catcher, Brian Heckelman, hit a 3-run homer. From there on, the Tigers were in control. After some defensive errors by the Hawks, Towson continued to add to their lead in the second with unearned runs. A single from Jordan Peyton, a redshirt senior infielder, allowed Brett Ahalt, a redshirt senior outfielder, to cross home plate. The next came from freshman first basemen, Nich Francuzenko, who singled home freshman second basemen, AJ Kolb. To seal their win, redshirt sophomore, Taye Robinson, doubled to center, scoring Hecklemen and Max D’Alessandro, a junior designated hitter.
Despite a rought start to the series, momentum swung in the Hawks favor on Saturday (3/29) afternoon. A single up the middle from Casey Caufield, graduate second baseman, scored Harry Padden, graduate centerfielder. Towson pulled ahead in the bottom of the second with a single to left from Cole Stefano, junior leftfielder, scored D’Alessandro. However, the game was tied up after a homerun from Nick Lovarco, junior rightfielder.
The winning runs came from another Hawks homer, this one off the bat of Bant. With Caufield on base, Bant’s homerun put the Hawks ahead 4-2, a lead they kept for the rest of the game, the final score being 5-3.
Monmouth took full advantage of the momentum swing from Saturday’s win on Sunday (3/30) afternoon, scoring nine of their 10 runs in the first two innings. Padden crossed the plate for the Hawk’s first run on a Caufield triple to right. Caufield proceeded to score on a fielding error. Lovarco added to the 2-0 lead with a grand slam to left. The Hawks were up 6-0 after the top of the first. Ryan Mealy, freshman right-handed pitcher, gave the Hawks a strong start, making Towson suffer a poor offensive response in the bottom half of the first, only allowing one run on a Heckleman single to center. The Hawks added four more runs throughout the rest of the game, including another RBI from Lovarco, totaling him to five RBIs for the day. Despite Towson’s attempts to comeback, Monmouth added this game to their win column with a final score of 10-6.
