Baseball Wins First Game of Assumption Double Header

by Vaughan Smith
edited by Erica Jordan

On Saturday April 24, the men’s varsity baseball team came out victorious in the first game of a double header against Assumption College.

In what turned out to be a dominant win for the men’s varsity baseball team and a real treat for the fans on hand, they defeated Assumption College 8-1 in the first game of a double header. The offense was led by catcher Mike Dowd who hit a solo home run in his first at bat which set the tone for the rest of the game. “I feel that the first inning homerun did set the tone.  It was followed up three batters later with another homerun from LaCroix, which gave Maloney some more run support, which also let everyone know that we came out swinning the bats today,”  said Dowd. After that, a three run home run was hit to really pad the lead. The majority of the runs came in the first few innings but the offense was shut down the remainder of the game.

Although the offense was on display in this game, the real story was starting pitcher Brian Maloney. Maloney looked spectacular in this game picking up his second win of the season. “Brian came out attacking early and he has pitching really well as of late striking out a lot of batters. He was lights out and was throwing 3 pitches for strikes keeping the hitters from assumption off balance all day.  It’s easy catching games like that when your pitcher is on and working fast. I’m sure it must have been a great game to watch as well,” said Dowd. He pitched a complete game, allowing 1 run and struck out 13 batters. The Assumption hitters looked clueless at the plate as Maloney kept mowing them down inning after inning. His shutout was eventually broken up in the sixth inning but none the less he got the win 

The majority of their success has been because of their conditioning and hard work ethic in practice. “I feel we are possibly the top conditioned team in the conference and it pays off big time.  We are so deep at all positions and everyone is ready to step up at anytime.  Being as conditioned as we are, someone could come up late in the game and be ready to run, hit, throw, or play the field. It is a major advantage when we are all ready as a team,” said Dowd. This win gives the team a boost of confidence as they will soon head into the NE-10 Tourney as well as the Regional’s.