LEXINGTON, S.C.—The Roger Williams Baseball team earned a pair of wins against Case Western Reserve 9-8 and 11-8 on a Tuesday afternoon in South Carolina.
Game one ended with a walk off double by
Brandon Jenkins (East Bridgewater, Mass.) in the bottom of the ninth. It took many Hawks chipping in to help their team earn their second win of the season. Left fielder,
Joey Gulino (Meriden, Conn.) went 2 for 4,
Chris Bosco (North Andover, Mass.) 3 for 4,
Danny Roth (West Hartford, Conn.) 2 for 4, and
Tyler Cedeno (Maynard, Mass.) 3 for 5.
Kyle Schaefer (Madison, Conn.) started off on the mound for the Hawks and pitched five innings allowing four hits, two runs, three walks, and five strikeouts.
The Hawks came to play right away scoring the first run of the game in the bottom of the first.
In the top of the second, CWR's Benjamin Stawicki (Aurora, Ohio) walks and advances on a wild pitch to second base. Noah Mehrle (Liberty Township, Ohio) hops in the batter's box and hits a ground ball up the middle to center fielder
Eli Camner (Hamden, Conn.) who came up firing to get Stawicki out at the plate for the second out. Due to not sliding at the plate, Stawicki was ejected from the game causing Cole Jarrett (Baltimore, Md.) to take his place. The game became tied 1-1 after Mehrle crossed the plate from Samuel Neal's (Smithfield, Va.) RBI double.
The Hawks tacked on two more runs in the bottom of the third from Roth's two run homerun taking the lead 3-1. After a one, two, three inning for RWU, the team continued to work scoring one more run in bottom four.
The Spartans came back slowly scoring a run in the top of the fifth. However, the Hawks kept making things happen offensively coming back with two more runs securing a 6-2 lead.
It was the top of the sixth that
Matt Vernacatola (Berlin, Conn.) went in relief for Schaefer allowing three runs and a strikeout. With a 6-5 score,
Craig Demers (Acushnet, Mass.) went in for Vernacatola and that is when the game got interesting.
A run was scored early on in the top of the seventh and then with two outs and bases loaded for the Spartans, Demers hits Jacob Lott (Pickerington, Ohio) with a pitch causing a controversial call from the umpires. Lott was initially called out for leaning into the pitch but after an appeal from Spartan's head coach the call was revoked plating Jarrett for the go ahead run 7-6. One more run during that inning was scored causing the Spartans to be up two.
Fast forward to the eighth inning, Bosco led off with a double to left center. Jenkins follows with double to right field advancing Bosco to third. A wild pitch plates Bosco but the Hawks still trailed by one (8-7).
After a nail biting inning,
Ben Bonavita (East Longmeadow, Mass.) singles to left field.
Tommy Hobin (Madison, Conn.) lays down a sacrifice bunt to advance Bonavita. Gulino and Bosco both walk juicing the bases with one out. Jenkins steps into the batter's box and ropes a double to right center scoring two for the walk off win.
RWU collected a total of 17 hits while CWR had 13.
In game two, the Hawks scored four runs right away with Camner, Cedeno, Dominguez, and Bonavita with RBI's. A homerun by Rocco Maue (Moon Township, Pa.) put the score at 4-1 after the first inning.
In the top of the second, Camner smashed a three run homerun securing the lead 7-1 early on. The Spartans and the Hawks each added another run (8-2) going into the fifth in which RWU earned one while CWR gained two.
Bonavita's single and
Anthony Dominguez's (Chester, N.J.) fielder's choice helped the Hawks obtain two more runs (11-5) in the top of the sixth.
The Spartans tried to rally in the bottom of the ninth by scoring three more runs but it just wasn't enough to defeat the Hawks.
Anthony Sapienza (North Andover, Mass.) received the win of the second game while
Ryan Havunen (Lincoln, R.I.) got the save.
The Hawks (3-1) face Case Western Reserve (4-5) again tomorrow at 2 p.m. and Brevard College (4-12) at 6 p.m.
