While many Tufts students found themselves chilling for the last few days of spring break, the baseball team spent its weekend catching fire.
After starting off their trip to Virginia and North Carolina 2-4, the Jumbos bounced back this weekend, winning four straight before losing to Virginia Wesleyan, 16-12, yesterday.
"We were very comparable to all those teams," senior pitcher Jason Protano said. "We just didn't play good baseball in those games."
"It's just a matter of getting into it," senior co-captain Adam Telian added. "These are the first games we've seen fly balls, ground balls - it's a lot different seeing everything outside. It's the first time we've seen live batting, live pitching. It's a whole different game."
Tufts' winning streak began on Thursday in Rocky Mount, N.C. when the team took the field against North Carolina Wesleyan. The Jumbos started strong, capitalizing on two Wesleyan errors to score three runs in the first inning.
In the second, Tufts scored two more runs on a sacrifice fly by junior co-captain Kevin Casey and a double from senior first baseman Steve Ragonese. In the third, the Jumbos tacked on another run, bringing the score to 6-1, but the Bishops were far from out of it. They put up three runs in the bottom of the third to close the gap to two.
Freshman center fielder Ian Goldberg, who hit .405 through the first 10 games of the trip, led off the fourth with his second home run of the season. But Bishop senior Chris Pecora responded in the fifth with a solo blast of his own.
Junior third baseman Ari David scored the last two runs for the Jumbos, one after walking in the seventh and another after a leadoff RBI single in the ninth. That was all the Jumbos needed and they went on to win 9-7.
The team moved on to a 13-11 win against Randolph-Macon on Friday, led by a five-hit performance from Ragonese and complemented by three hits each from Goldberg, David and junior Dave Katzman. The team totaled an impressive 24 hits on the day.
Saturday saw the Jumbos' pitching catch up with their hitting in a doubleheader sweep of the Apprentice School in Hampton, Va. Tufts put up 14 runs in the first game while holding Apprentice to seven, then shut out the Builders in the second, a 10-0 victory.
"Our hitters have been hitting since the beginning," Telian said. "We've been putting up so many runs, just jumping on teams. Our pitching has been great, and our fielding has come around the last few games. Everything's been working and coming together the past few days like we hoped it would."
Apprentice started strong, as sophomore Jonathan Dehoux's home run in the first inning gave the Builders a 2-1 lead at the end of the first frame. By the end of the third, Apprentice had extended that lead to 4-2.
In the fifth, however, the Jumbo bats took over, as they tallied four runs on six hits to grab a 6-4 lead. Tufts then added eight more runs in the sixth, as Ragonese hit a home run and a triple in the same inning to knock in four runs.
Ragonese returns from the break having posted a .500 batting average through the first 10 games with a slugging percentage of .895. He's already crushed three home runs in the first eight games, a third of his total in 37 games last season.
Overall Tufts had 17 hits in the game, while Telian struck out six in six innings to earn the victory.
In game two, freshman Pat O'Donnell got his first victory in a Tufts uniform. He spread out six hits across six innings, striking out two, walking one and allowing no runs. Sophomore Tommy Hill struck out two in a scoreless seventh to complete the shutout.
Tufts' offense continued its dominance, scoring seven runs in the first two innings and coasting to the victory. Goldberg went 2-for-5 with a triple and two runs scored, while Ragonese went 2-for-4 with two RBI. The Jumbos were the picture of offensive efficiency, scoring 10 runs on 10 hits.
The Jumbos ended their road trip with a game yesterday against Virginia Wesleyan, losing 16-11. Next weekend, Tufts will take on its first in-conference competition in a three-game set with Bates. The Jumbos will look to emulate last year's series, when they swept the Bobcats in all three contests.
"We feel pretty confident, especially with [the] way we've been playing," Telian said. "We should be able to go out and get a few wins. We're thinking pretty positively about this upcoming weekend."
