A three-run swing by graduate student outfielder James Marino wasn\u2019t enough as Quinnipiac baseball couldn\u2019t maintain its late lead, falling 6-5 to the Manhattan Jaspers in the opener of a three-game MAAC series Friday afternoon in Pomona, N.Y.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Bobcats struck first when senior catcher\/first baseman Christian Smith opened the second inning by sending a ball to the deepest part of center field that Manhattan\u2019s graduate student outfielder Payton Matthews misplayed into a leadoff triple, and junior outfielder\/first baseman Jack Balcer brought him home with a groundout to short. That early push was not enough in a game that kept turning on small mistakes and missed chances.<\/p>\n
For much of the afternoon, Manhattan graduate student right-handed pitcher Connor Throneberry kept Quinnipiac from fully settling in. The Bobcats managed only two runs through the first six innings, even though traffic was created on the bases.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Quinnipiac finished with nine hits and just one strikeout, but two double plays and a handful of stalled scoring chances kept the offense from cashing in. Marino accounted for three of those hits, while Balcer added two and Smith finished with a pair of extra-base knocks.<\/p>\n
Manhattan grabbed control in the bottom of the third and did so without much hard contact. Senior infielder Trevor Hansen ripped a leadoff single into left, senior infielder Ryan Lordier worked a full-count walk and after sophomore utilityman Guriyandel Salva struck out,a wild pitch pushed both runners into scoring position. Matthews dropped a blooper in front of senior right-handed pitcher James Pazdera, who rushed his throw past redshirt sophomore catcher Cole Constable, allowing both runners to score on the two-run error.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Quinnipiac answered in the fourth when junior infielder Kyle Garbowski and senior infielder Alex Irizarry drew walks, a high wild pitch pushed Garbowski to third and Irizarry was caught too far off first before he was picked off in a rundown.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Bobcats still recovered, with Smith putting the ball in play on a fielder\u2019s choice that let Garbowski slide around the tag at home to tie the game at 2-2.\u00a0<\/p>\n
That deadlock did not last long. In the bottom half, redshirt sophomore outfielder Justin Best worked a full-count walk, sophomore outfielder\/first baseman Colin Basehore roped the first pitch he saw into right-center for a double and redshirt senior catcher Hunter Sute lifted a sacrifice fly to put the Jaspers back in front.\u00a0<\/p>\n
One inning later, Lordier singled to left and swiped his 11th stolen base of the season, Matthews split the gap in left-center field with a double, and senior corner infielder Vincent Samuel grounded out on a 2-1 pitch to bring in another run for a 4-2 Manhattan lead. Pazdera was charged with four runs, though only two were earned, across 4 2\/3 innings before senior right-hander Mike Poncini was summoned from the bullpen.<\/p>\n
Quinnipiac finally landed its counterpunch in the seventh. After Smith lined out to third, Balcer beat out a roller up the middle that Lordier could not handle cleanly, and sophomore infielder Matt Park followed with a bloop grounder that skipped past Samuel at third for an error.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A wild pitch moved Balcer to third, and although Constable was retired on a fly ball to first, Marino jumped on a hanging pitch left in the middle of the zone and drove a towering three-run homer to deep right that swung the game back in Quinnipiac\u2019s favor, 5-4.\u00a0<\/p>\n
That one-run cushion disappeared almost immediately. With the weather conditions worsening, Hansen opened the bottom of the seventh by lining a ball into right-center that slipped out of the glove of Edvardsen as he fell, and Lordier\u2019s groundout to third moved him into scoring position. Salva then swung through a pitch in the dirt, but the pitch kicked all the way to the backstop, allowing Salva to reach and Hansen to take third.\u00a0<\/p>\n
After Matthews struck out looking for the second out, Salva stole second and Samuel worked a walk to load the bases in the inning. Graduate student catcher Andreaus Lewis then lashed a 3-2 pitch to right that sailed over Edvardsen\u2019s head and banged off the wall, scoring Hansen and Salva before Lewis was cut down trying to stretch the play into a double. The damage, though, had already been done, as Manhattan reclaimed the lead for good at 6-5.<\/p>\n
Quinnipiac still had its fair share of chances late. Senior right-hander Mike Poncini and sophomore left-hander J.C. Franconere combined to keep the deficit at one, with Franconere stranding a leadoff triple in the eighth.\u00a0<\/p>\n
However, in the ninth, the sophomore left-hander Jackson Klein slammed the door on the Bobcats. Edvardsen grounded out to move the tying run into scoring position, and Williamson struck out swinging to end it.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Bobcats fall to 6-12 as they look to bounce back on Saturday, March 21, in Pomona, N.Y., in the second game of the three-game MAAC series. First pitch is set for 6:30 p.m.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A three-run swing by graduate student outfielder James Marino wasn\u2019t enough as Quinnipiac baseball couldn\u2019t maintain its late…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":170001,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[69619,69620,75,84,83,9,24,63],"class_list":["post-170000","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manhattan","tag-james-marino","tag-maac-baseball","tag-manhattan","tag-manhattan-headlines","tag-manhattan-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170000","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=170000"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170000\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/170001"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=170000"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=170000"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=170000"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}