This past Saturday, April 30, Plymouth State Baseball continued their busy game schedule with a trip to Brockton, MA to face University of Massachusetts Boston in a two game Little East Conference matchup. After a tough loss to the Beacons in ten innings (4-3) during game one, the Panthers battled back behind Junior Pitcher, Jonathan Bishop to take game two (6-1) and improve their chances at making the LEC tournament as the regular season winds down.
During the first game, Plymouth held the lead 3-1 in the ninth inning thanks to big hits from sophomore, Steve Beard and Junior, Luke Merrill. Junior Pitcher, Bobby Chatfield pitched a solid six innings with seven “K”s and was replaced by Senior, Bryant Lausberg halfway through the inning. Lausberg unfortunately suffered the loss after an error that led UMass to tie the game sending it to extra innings and ultimately ending in a one run loss for the Panthers.
Plymouth Baseball has won the past seven of nine games and their overall record stands at 12-12 and 4-8 within the LEC. In the second game, UMass scored quickly in the first inning to take the lead 1-0 but the fourth inning proved to be the deciding factor offensively for Plymouth when they scored five of their six runs off of big hits from freshman, Jeff Runnals and Junior, Ryan McIntosh. Runnals drove in two runs on a double and McIntosh raked in three runs from his double to boost the score 5-1 entering the fifth.
Plymouth scored one more run in the eighth inning to secure the win while Bishop controlled the defensive focus on the field. Bishop allowed the Beacons only one run and struck out ten throughout the course of the game. “We knew that we had to win the second game if we wanted to have a chance to make the conference tournament” stated Bishop, “It felt good to have such a strong outing. Once the game was over, the whole team was pretty fired up because it was such an intense game, especially after the outcome of the first game.”
The second game loss bumped UMass Boston’s conference record to 7-5 and increased Plymouth’s chances of making the conference tournament. According to Bishop, the team needs to win both games on Friday against RIC (Rhode Island College) to have any chance at qualifying for the tournament but they are taking it one day at a time. This Friday, Plymouth State Baseball will also be honoring the seniors on the team in between games against RIC at Panther Field around 4pm.