Baseball swept for a second straight weekend

Early season misfortunes continued for baseball as they dropped another three-game set at South Alabama. PHOTO CREDIT: gorhody.com

The University of Rhode Island Baseball team will have to wait another weekend to grab their first win of the season. 

They were swept for a second straight weekend, dropping all three games of their series at South Alabama last weekend. Although the team wasn’t able to get the job done, Rhode Island Baseball Coach Raphael Cerrato saw improvement from his team. 

“I mean we lost three games, so it wasn’t a great weekend, but what I did notice was that our pitching showed signs of improvement in this series as opposed to the last one,” Cerrato said. “We had some innings get away from us, but I did think our pitching did better and our offense competed.”

URI began Game 1 on the right foot in the top of the first inning, scoring the first run of the game and getting an early lead. Eric Genther, the designated hitter for the game, scored the unearned run for the Rams after an error by the Jaguars’ third-baseman on a Jordan Laske single. The bottom of the first is where the game went downhill. 

Runs scored by South Alabama’s Erick Orbeta, Landon Jordan, Hunter Stokes and Santi Montiel put them ahead 4-1. A base hit by Miles Simington brought Orbeta and Will Turner in to score, followed by a triple by Stokes that brought Jordan in, putting the Jaguars ahead 7-1 after two innings. 

Neither team scored again until the fifth inning, when the Rams scored their second and final run of the game. Xavier Vargas’ single to right field brought Genther in, cutting the deficit to 7-2, but South Alabama answered back in the sixth and seventh innings. 

In the sixth inning, runs scored by Jordan, Simington, Charles Middleton Jr. and Stokes put the Jaguars ahead 11-2. Then in the seventh inning, Brandon Auerbach scored another run for the Jaguars. The final runs were scored on a bases-clearing double by Montiel which sent Noah Bailey, Bailee Hendon and Cameron Tissue home, securing the Jaguars’ 15-2 win.

Game 2 on Saturday was another quiet outing for the URI offense as they didn’t end up scoring their lone run until the seventh inning, which was scored by Tommy Cartnick. Prior to that, South Alabama was able to put up eight runs, starting off with Simington scoring in the first. 

The fourth inning featured Diego Altamirano and Turner scoring two more runs. The fifth inning had Altamirano and Joseph Sullivan score followed by a three-run home run by Jordan that also brought Orbeta and Turner in. The Rams fell by a score of 9-1.

After a couple of blowout games for URI, Game 3 presented the team with a chance to get one win in this series. Addison Kopack scored the opening run on an Alex Ramirez single into center field, giving the Rams a 1-0 lead. Runs in the fourth and sixth innings gave South Alabama the 2-1 lead, both scored by Middleton. 

The Rams regrouped in the seventh inning when Anthony DePino scored on a Rob Butler single, tying the game at 2-2, but unfortunately for URI, they would lose 3-2 after Turner scored the game-winning run on a Simington triple for the Jaguars in the seventh. 

“We kind of played against ourselves in the first week, so I do believe we did a better job competing more against South Alabama,” Kopack said.

The Rams have another tough matchup ahead against an SEC team in Auburn University in a four-game series.       

“They’re an SEC team and they’ve got a good club there, but I think as long as we play how we want to play, then things could go our way,” Cerrato said.

The games are set to be played Friday at 7 p.m., Saturday at 3 p.m. and 7 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m.