Second-year Eric Genther recorded a home run and three RBI’s in Saturday’s extra-innings win. PHOTO CREDIT: gorhody.com
The University of Rhode Island baseball team took a trip to The Bronx over the weekend to face off against Fordham University, winning two out of the three games.
The Rams got rolling in the first game of the series in the third and fourth innings with runs from third-year Addison Kopack, second-year Anthony DePino and redshirt third-year Alex Ramirez. The trio provided all five of Rhode Island’s runs with home runs.
Third-year Sean Sposato started on the bump for the Rams, going 6.1 innings, allowing two earned runs on two hits with four strikeouts.
Fordham made things interesting in the seventh inning, cutting Rhode Island’s lead down to one after fourth-year Bo Brutti gave up two earned runs of his own in 1/3 of an inning. A clean outing from third-year reliever Zach Fernandez and a hitless two innings from second-year reliever Ryan Andrade closed the game out for the Rams with a score of 5-4.
Friday was the highest scoring affair in the series and a comeback win for the Rams. Fordham started off the game hitting two home runs in the first inning. It was not until the fourth inning that Rhode Island answered back when fourth-year Billy Butler got on base with a single, eventually scoring a run on an error from Fordham’s center fielder.
Butler said he took a different approach at the plate which led to his success in the series.
“I’ve been really aggressive all year and I feel like I dialed that down over the weekend,” Butler said. “I saw the ball a lot better.”
Rhode Island’s third-year starting pitcher Trystan Levesque let up his third earned run of the game in the fifth inning, and was pulled after getting through the sixth inning.
Fordham let Rhode Island stay in the game after Ramirez scored for the Rams on another fielding error in the seventh.
First-year Jeremy Urena came into the game in relief to try and hold Fordham to a two-run lead, but was unsuccessful. He let up two earned runs in the seventh inning.
The Rams started to mount their comeback in the eighth inning with a solo home run to right field from first-year Nick Toro.
Rhode Island headed into the ninth trailing Fordham by two runs. Ramirez started the inning off with a walk and first-year Michael Anderson followed with a single. The next batter was second-year Eric Genther, who gave the Rams a 6-5 lead with a three-run home run.
Urena tried to close the game out for Rhode Island, but let up a run in the bottom of the ninth causing the game to go into extra innings tied 6-6.
After throwing 36 pitches in the previous game, Rhode Island head coach Raphael Cerrato turned to Ryan Andrade again.
“He was down for Friday and wasn’t gonna pitch,” said Cerrato. “We took the lead in the ninth and he came to me and said ‘Coach, I can go. I can give you an inning.’ so I told him to get his spikes on and get hot.”
The game went scoreless all the way into the 12th inning. DePino got the hitting started for the Rams with a base hit into left field. Second-year Rob Butler helped out with a triple that brought DePino home, but Rhode Island was not finished yet. Third-year Calvin McCall singled with a hit into left center field to drive in Rob Butler for the run. Alex Ramirez capped off the inning with a home run to put the Rams up 9-6.
Ryan Andrade closed the game out and finished with six strikeouts in 3.1 scoreless innings, earning the win.
“It was really impressive,” said Butler. “It’s not too surprising. Andrade is definitely one of our most impressive arms. It was really electric and fired us up.”
Saturday’s game featured a pitchers duel between Fordham and Rhode Island with first-year Braeden Perry getting the start for Rhody. He went seven innings, allowing only two hits and no runs. The performance was enough to earn him Atlantic 10 Rookie of the Week honors.
Rhode Island could not get their bats going, however, and only accumulated five hits throughout the whole game. Fordham walked the game off in the ninth inning with an RBI single to win 1-0.
Despite the 1-0 loss on Saturday, Cerrato believes the weekend was a success.
“Anytime you win two out of three is good,” said Cerrato. “That’s the goal every weekend.”
Rhode Island is now looking forward to their next series opponent and trying to improve on their weekend mishaps.
“I feel like this upcoming weekend is a great opportunity for us to get back into the swing of things,” said Butler.
The Rams will take on St. Bonaventure in their next conference series, April 14-16, and captain Butler says he is looking forward to it.