Jumbos take three of four from Wesleyan

After a 5-5 spring trip and a week off due to Wednesday's rainout at Mass Maritime, the Tufts baseball team finally hit the field this weekend, traveling to Middletown, Connecticut on Sunday for a doubleheader against the Wesleyan Cardinals after having launched the 2004 Jumbo home season Saturday at Tufts' Huskins Field, also against Wesleyan.

Sunday's games proved to be pitching battles, with juniors Jeremy Davis (2-1, 6.91 ERA) and Jeff Volinski (1-0, 2.00 ERA) both pitching strongly in their starts with six-and-a-third and five innings of work respectively.

Davis picked up the win in game one -- a 4-2 Jumbo victory -- with a two-run, eight-hit performance that helped reestablish his position in the rotation after two shaky outings earlier in the season. Tufts notched 11 hits in the game, scoring a run in the fourth on a single and steal by freshman Kyle Backstrom and a single by sophomore shortstop Greg Chertok.

The Jumbos added a run in the fifth and two in the sixth to hold off Wesleyan, which scored a run in the bottom of the seventh but was shutdown by freshman Aaron Narva, who got Wesleyan's Jarred Gagnon to ground into a game-ending double play.

Volinski put in five innings of four-hit, two-run work in game two, staking Tufts to a 3-2 lead before giving way to freshman Ben Simon, who pitched two scoreless innings for the save. Wesleyan pitchers Andrew Sternberg and Brian Mahr gave up just two hits to the Jumbos -- singles to sophomore catcher Ben Chang and freshman left fielder Brian Casey -- but the Jumbos capitalized on three errors by the Cardinals, including two in the third and one in the fifth, to win.

The games were a dramatic turnaround from Saturday's performance in cold, damp, overcast conditions that hinted at yet another impending deluge. But the rain never came, and the teams took to the still-soft field for the doubleheader.

Tufts took the opener in a wild 9-8 win before Wesleyan struck back with a 6-0 shutout in the second.

"Even though the first game ended up being a win, we didn't play well for the second half of that game at all, and it almost cost us," senior infielder Nick Palange said

Senior co-captain Randy Newsom (3-0, 4.68 ERA) took the hill for Tufts in the opener, and the game did not begin cleanly. Cardinals sophomore centerfielder Jeff Maier (.469 BA, 3 HR), led off the first with a wind-assisted solo homer to right field.

The Jumbos struck back quickly with three runs of their own in the bottom of the frame. Senior co-captain and third baseman Adam Kacamburas (.340 BA, 15 R) was hit by a pitch from Wesleyan starter Eric Wdowiak (1-2, 8.10 ERA) to lead off. One out later sophomore right fielder Matt Clement (team-leading .476 average, .607 on-base percentage) and freshman first baseman Bryan McDavitt hit back-to-back doubles to right center, with McDavitt scoring the third Jumbo run on a Wdowiak wild pitch.

Wesleyan got one back in the third, but Tufts answered with five of its own to lead 8-2 after three innings, on a series of Tufts hits capped off by junior catcher Bob Kenny.

"Bob Kenny behind the plate has been awesome," Newsom said. "He's hitting .350 and the kid's catching every game. He's just been fantastic."

Newsom gave up two more in the fourth, but Palange (.361, 2 HR) answered with what proved to be the deciding run, a leadoff homer to right off Wesleyan reliever Michael Dacey to give the Jumbos a 9-4 lead.

"I feel like I'm hitting great, I don't know whether I just figured it out all of a sudden or what happened," Palange said.

Newsom set down seven straight going into the seventh but quickly fell apart and was pulled for classmate Dave Frew (0-2, 1.06 ERA). Frew hit a batter and allowed an RBI groundout and sacrifice fly to put Wesleyan within one (9-8), but sophomore southpaw Zak Smotherman came in and needed just one pitch to get RF Rob Coughlin to fly to right to end it and preserve the win for Newsom.

"I was the one who threw the worst out of the group, and I ended up getting the win," Newsom said.

The nightcap started in much the same way the opener did, with Maier again going deep to right to lead off the game, this time off Smotherman, who stayed on the mound for the game two start. The blast seemed to spark something in the lefty, who set down the next 11 batters, including four in a row on strikes in the second and third innings.

After retiring the first two Cardinals in the fourth, a 3-2 single by Alexander Brooks and consecutive walks to Jason Vitko and Coughlin loaded the bases for junior DH Dimitri Paleokrasses, who worked the count full. Smotherman's payoff pitch, a knee-high fastball, appeared to be a called third strike, but the plate umpire disagreed, allowing Brooks to walk in. The call brought coach John Casey storming from the dugout amid a flurry of strong words to back up his pitcher.

"I thought it was a good pitch, and you can't have your kid out there making good pitches and not defend him," Casey said.

After meeting on the mound with Smotherman and Kenny, Casey returned to the dugout and Smotherman worked the count to 1-1 on catcher Tom Stevens before getting what looked like an inning-ending grounder to short. But the ball skipped through the legs of Tufts' junior shortstop Frank Dinucci, allowing another two runs to score.

"It was a routine groundball. You saw their shortstop make it; our guy's got to make it," Casey said. "If you want to win games, you've got to make the plays."

The Cardinals put up a 6-0 lead with another two runs off sophomore lefty Erik Johanson in the fifth -- both unearned on a Kacamburas error -- before being shutdown in the final two frames.

Wesleyan starter Tom Blass (3-1, 1.69 ERA), meanwhile, stifled the Tufts offense, which looked flat from midway through the opener onwards. Blass allowed just two singles, one an infield shot by Dinucci in the fourth that Vitko lunged at and knocked down. Blass struck out five and walked four, but didn't allow a Jumbo beyond second to record his second straight shutout of the season.

Palange, however, felt that the Jumbos could have made the game more of a contest.

"He was a good pitcher but I think we didn't do what we could have off of him," Palange said. "I don't think we brought our game up to his level like we should have."