Baseball Starts Season With 5-6 Record After Sweep of NYIT

By MAX PRINZ

The Fordham baseball team has dropped six of its first nine games of the 2014 season.  After a postponement and a field change, the team has been forced to play all of its early games on the road.

After traveling to Spartanburg, S.C. and Bel Air, Md. for their first five games, the Rams played their second set of games closer to home. They traveled to Stony Brook for a three-game series, sporting a 3-3 record.

The first matchup with Stony Brook, game one of a Saturday doubleheader, was a very bleak affair for the Rams. Fordham was shut out by Stony Brook’s Frankie Vanderka, who surrendered just three hits. The Stony Brook offense, meanwhile, scored a pair of runs in the first inning and never looked back. The Sea Wolves went on to win 6-0.

The second game did not go any better. Senior J.C. Porter got the start, and made it through three scoreless innings before losing control.

“I had the worst game I’ve ever thrown in my Fordham baseball career,” Porter said. “It wasn’t so much me getting hit, but a lot of different things contributing to it.”

Fordham lost control in the fourth inning, when Porter gave up six earned runs. All 10 of Stony Brook’s runs came in that fourth inning, while Fordham’s offense failed to wake up for the second straight game. The Rams, who managed just two hits, lost 10-0 after the game was called following the seventh inning mercy rule.

The final game of the weekend, which was moved back to Stony Brook because of poor conditions at Houlihan Park, was played on Sunday. Though the Rams were shut out in the first two games of the series, their loss in the final game was the most painful.

“There are games; there’s debacles. That was like a stage four debacle,” Porter said. “Sometimes you play against a team. We were playing against a team. We were playing against the umpires. We were playing against the elements. There are things from that game that I’ve never seen.”

The game began excitingly, as both teams scored in the first inning. Sophomore Ryan McNally knocked an RBI single to give the Rams their first run of the series. Both teams would add four more runs, making it 5-5 at the end of nine innings. Extra innings, however, did not go as well for Fordham.

In the top of the 10th, the Rams scored to take the lead. Freshman Matt Kozuch hit a single that scored senior Rob McCunney. Stony Brook got that run right back in the bottom of the 10th, when freshman closer Greg Weissert threw an especially wild pitch that allowed the Sea Wolves to score.

“There’s a ball in the dirt and it bounces into the umpire’s pocket,” Porter said. “Chuck [Galiano, the catcher] is like scrambling looking for the ball. No one knows what’s going on, even the runner on third didn’t know where to go. The umpire starts moving away; Chuck’s running after him as the runner starts going home. And they ended up tying it up.”

After that wild sequence, the game remained tied until the 12th inning. A McCunney RBI triple, freshman Jason Lundy’s RBI single and a wild pitch allowed the Rams to score three runs and take a 9-6 lead into the bottom half of the inning. Unfortunately, Weissert was again unable to get the job done. Stony Brook scored three runs of its own and tied the score.

The game was decided in the bottom of the 14th inning. A Stony Brook RBI single went down the right field line, giving the Sea Wolves a walk-off victory.

“It was miserable,” Porter said. “You’ve got to find a way to win those games. We had chances. Greg’s been really good for us this year, but as a freshman you go through some growing pains.”

Tuesday offered the Rams a chance to get back on track. Fordham, in its first time playing at Houlihan Park, faced off against New York Institute of Technology for their third doubleheader of the season.

A strong Fordham offense and good innings from the bullpen led Fordham to a victory. Six different Fordham hitters recorded an RBI and three relievers held off an NYIT comeback attempt. Freshman Luke Stampfl gave up two runs in the final inning, but Porter was sent in, got the last out and recorded a save, giving Fordham a 7-6 victory.

The second game was a similarly high-scoring one. Lundy was the star of that matchup, as he went 3-4 and drove in four runs. Stampfl entered the game in the fifth inning to earn the win. Fordham completed the sweep of NYIT with an 11-8 win.

With the two wins on Tuesday, Fordham’s record is  5-6 on the year. This week, the Rams host Iona at home on Wednesday, and have a weekend doubleheader against Sacred Heart on Saturday at 12 noon.