The baseball team had more than its fill of the Wesleyan Cardinals this past weekend.
The Jumbos played the Cardinals two times on Saturday at Tufts, and twice again on Sunday at Wesleyan. The teams split the four games right down the middle, with Tufts winning the opener on Saturday, 8-1, and the final game last night, 7-4. Wesleyan prevailed in the second game on Saturday, 10-0, and the first game on Sunday, 3-2.
The 2-2 weekend brought the Jumbos' overall record to 7-7-1, and their NESCAC record to 3-2. The Cardinals, meanwhile, moved their overall record to 12-5-1, and their NESCAC mark to 5-2.
The first two games, played Saturday in Medford, were a wash. The Jumbos topped the Cardinals 8-1 in the first game behind a strong pitching performance by sophomore Jon Lee, while the second game saw another dominant pitching performance, but this time from Wesleyan starter Ron Guglielmino. Guglielmino tossed a no-hitter, blanking the Jumbos 10-0.
"Personally, I didn't think he was that dominant a pitcher," senior Corey Dolich said. "We hit a couple balls hard, and we didn't play as well as we are capable off. His stuff wasn't that dominating."
Guglielmino did walk six Jumbos, and Tufts had a few opportunities to break up the no-hitter. In the third inning, Tufts had runners on first and second with two outs, but senior Todd Boutwell popped up to end the Jumbo threat. Tufts again had two baserunners in the seventh, but Guglielmino coaxed a long fly ball out of Jon Herbert and the Jumbos again failed to score. By that point, however, the game was out of reach, as Wesleyan used a six-run fifth inning to put it away.
Cardinal sophomore right fielder Matt Johnson hit a grand slam to increase the Wesleyan lead to 6-0. Sophomore Bill Robinson added a two-run homer one inning later, as Tufts dropped its overall record to 6-6-1.
Tufts junior starter Steve Lapham and sophomore Chris Lovejoy shared the pitching duties, giving up ten runs on 12 hits.
In the first contest, Lee threw a complete game, allowing only eight hits and one run, while striking out six, to up his season record to 2-0. The only Wesleyan run came in the first inning, when senior left fielder Winsor Schmidt singled, scoring sophomore Jim Barletto.
The Jumbo hitters wasted no time in regaining the lead, scoring four runs in the bottom of the first, aided by extra base hits from Herbert and sophomore shortstop Brian Shapiro. The first five batters in the Tufts lineup had all of the team's hits in the game and were responsible for seven of the eight Jumbo RBIs. Herbert, the team's leading hitter at .449 before Sunday's games, has been on fire lately, hitting .615 over six games entering the weekend. He added three more hits in the first game Saturday, driving in two runs.
"When you start hitting well, things just go your way," Herbert said of his recent tear. "You start seeing the ball better. You just have to hope it stays that way."
The split, while not an ideal outcome for the Jumbos, was impressive in that Tufts handed the Cardinals their first NESCAC loss of the season. Wesleyan (10-3-1 entering the weekend) returned the favor by giving the Jumbos their first conference loss; last year, the Jumbos swept Wesleyan, winning 10-6 and 5-0 in a doubleheader in Middletown.
"Coming out of the first one, we expected to win both and we really needed to win the second," Herbert said.
"We are playing inconsistently," Dolich added. "The first game was one of our better games of the year. We were crisp."
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