The baseball team turned the page on a frustrating four-loss weekend series against Middlebury and buckled down to secure a 7-2 victory against UMass Dartmouth on Tuesday, improving its record to 13-11.
A loss would have dropped the Jumbos to .500 for the first time since Mar. 20, when it was 2-2. Perhaps with that thought in the back of their minds, the Jumbos played with a sense of urgency and focus and led throughout the entire contest.
"This game was extremely important just to get the team on track," junior Chris Decembrele said. "We have a huge weekend coming up against Trinity, and we needed to get a good win [on Tuesday]. We played well in all facets of the game. We needed to get some hits, some good pitching, and make good plays and we did that. Hopefully we will be able to carry this over into our next games."
Tufts grabbed an early 2-0 advantage on a two-run shot off the bat of freshman Brian McDonough just three batters into the game. With junior Carlos Lopez starting on the mound, McDonough's blast was almost all the Jumbos would need to guarantee the victory. Lopez shut out the Corsairs during his five innings on the mound, surrendering just three hits to the 19 batters he faced.
His catcher, Decembrele, was impressed with his performance.
"Carlos has been pitching fantastic all season," Decembrele said. "Last Tuesday [against Brandeis], he pitched [almost] seven innings, and he did great. He came back today and pitched just as good. He was locating his fastball, generating groundballs, and was consistent overall."
Despite losing the shutout, Lopez's relief corps of junior co-captain Ben Simon, senior Erik Johanson, and sophomore Jason Protano finished out the game. Lopez improved to 2-0 with the win.
Tufts launched three home runs in the game, as McDonough's was joined by a solo shot on a 3-1 fastball by Decembrele in the fourth and another one by senior Jim O'Leary to open the top of the fifth. The team pounded 11 hits off of UMass Dartmouth's pitchers, senior right-hander Jason Thompson and freshman reliever Shaun McAuliffe.
"People are starting to have better
at-bats," junior co-captain Bryan McDavitt said. "I would attribute [the recent success] to better batting practice and better focus at the plate. [Thompson] was a good pitcher; he kept guys off-balance, but we made some good contact and worked his pitch count."
When the team's offense looked anemic in its series against Bowdoin on Apr. 8-9, coach John Casey decided to move the lineup around in an effort to generate more pop in the Jumbo bats. With junior Brian Casey leading off and O'Leary and McDonough following him in the two and three spots for the past week, the team seems to have recovered the offensive prowess that it propelled it through early April.
"Sometimes when things aren't going your way, it's good to change things up," Decembrele said. "Change is good when you're looking to generate more offense."
After yielding eight errors and 10 unearned runs in their four games over the weekend, the Jumbos played a much cleaner game in the field, which in turn gave their pitchers more breathing room.
Tufts will need nearly flawless performances on Friday and Saturday when it hosts conference-rival Trinity for a three-game series. The 2005 Div. III World Series champions will pose a formidable threat to a Tufts team that has been inconsistent at best in recent weeks.
Last year, Tufts played three games against the Bantams during this same late-April weekend. Trinity took two games by one run each, with Tufts winning the third, 4-1.
