By Mike DeSanto
Sports Editor
The St. Bonaventure University baseball team picked up its 11th win of the season on Wednesday, beating the Niagara Purple Eagles 7-2. The game was makeup for the postponed game from March 21.
The Bonnies (11-10) are now 4-1 at home and have won four straight games.
The Bonnies out hit the Purple Eagles (13-10) 10-6 over the course of the game, while teams drew even in runners left on base with five each.
“The song they played at the end of the game was apropos. It was ‘Taking Care of Business,’” head coach Larry Sudbrook said. “When you play the Tuesday games, they don’t have the magnitude of the conference games on the weekend, so you want to come out and go about them professionally. You want to go out there and make all the plays you should make, throw strikes [and] put the ball in play offensively. We did all those things.”
The Purple Eagles and Bonnies traded runs in the opening innings, with the Bonnies holding a tight 2-1 lead going into the sixth inning.
But in the bottom of the sixth, the Bonnies broke the game open, scoring five runs to go up 7-1. Singles by junior right fielder Dave Vaccaro and senior designated hitter T.J. Baker put runners on the corners with no outs, setting up RBI singles for junior third baseman David “Bubba” Hollins and senior second baseman Jared Baldinelli.
A walk loaded the bases, bringing up the returning Tommy LaCongo, a senior catcher, who promptly doubled to left field, driving in a pair of runs. Senior center fielder Taishi Terashima hit a sacrifice fly to deep left to score the fifth and final run in the inning.
The Purple Eagles were unable to mount a comeback, only scoring one more run in the top of the ninth, and the Bonnies secured the victory.
Freshman Murphy O’Brien started for the Bonnies, only pitching one inning while giving up no runs and one hit. Junior Roman Wild earned the win, throwing two-and-one-third shutout innings, allowing one hit and striking out four.
“We’re going to play the three games against Rhode Island this weekend and Murph will start one of them,” Sudbrook said. “Murph’s last outing against Dayton he looked like Cy Young in the first inning and he looked like sayonara in the second inning. Normally on this day he’d take a bullpen, so we wanted to get him back out there and let him have a good inning to come back in and go on the weekend.”
Freshman Nate Mascellino started on the mound for the Purple Eagles, letting up two runs on five hits and one walk with two strikeouts over four innings.
The Bonnies will return to the field this weekend when they face Rhode Island at home on Saturday at an unannounced time, and Sunday at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m.
desantmj13@bonaventure.edu
