West Hartford, CT ? The University of Hartford baseball team scored a mid-week victory by way of a 7-6 extra inning win over the Yale Bulldogs on Thursday afternoon at the Hartford Baseball Field. Andrew Smith earns the victory for Hartford, after pitching the final two innings in relief. The win is the first of his career. The Hawks improve to 9-21 overall.
Hartford won by way of errors, scoring the game-tying run in the ninth inning because of two errors, while a throwing error on the third baseman led to the game-winning run in the 12th inning. The run was scored by Andy Drexel who reached base with a one-out walk. In the next at bat, Ben Sobocinski struck a lightly hit ball to third base where it was fielded cleanly, but the throw went high over first base and sailed up the fence line in right field, allowing Drexel to score from first.
The Bulldogs (12-21) put the first notch on the scoreboard with a single run in the top of the fourth inning. With two outs, Andy Megee put a ball into the fence in right field and stretched it into a triple, scoring on a second-straight hit, a double to from Trygg Larsson-Danforth.
Yale added two additional runs in the fifth inning. Ryan Brenner was the first runner to reach base when he was hit by a pitch. He then scored on the next at bat, a perfectly executed hit-and-run, made possible by Gant Elmore's double down the right field line. Elmore then scored on a single to center from Stefan Schropp, putting Yale ahead 3-0.
Andrew Kolmar extended Yale's lead to 5-0 with a single swing of the bat, hitting his fourth home run of the season to straight-away center field. He knocked in Chris Sweeney who reached on a one-out single to right field.
The Hawks got on the board in the sixth inning, scoring two runs. Mike Amendola opened the inning with a single to left field and then took second on a walk to Drexel. Both advanced on a wild pitch and Amendola scored the first run on a sacrifice fly to right from Matt Walker. After also advancing on the sacrifice, Drexel scored the second run on an infield single to second base from Drew Sgro.
The Bulldogs took one run back on a solo home run to lead off the seventh inning. Zach Tobolowsky smacked his fifth home run of the season over the right center field fence to give Yale a 6-2 advantage.
The Hawks added three runs in the bottom of the seventh to pull within one, 6-5. The Bulldogs opened the inning with a new pitcher, Robert Gruber, who hit Jon Ricco with his second pitch. Ricco then took second on a bloop single to center field from Andrew Siano. Both Ricco and Siano scored on a one-out double, from Amendola, that rolled to the fence in left center. Amendola would then become the third run to score, after stealing third and scoring on a wild pitch.
Neither team scored in the eighth, despite one hit from the Bulldogs. Chris Sweeney hit a one-out single to right, but Mike Thatcher, who started the inning in relief, forced Andrew Kolmar to hit into a double play. On the opposite end, Vinny Lally, who also came on in relief, struck out the side, with two swinging and one looking.
After again holding the Bulldogs without a run in the top of the ninth, Hartford took advantage of two Yale errors in the bottom of the inning. Siano was the first to get the advantage of the error, reaching on a fielding error at shortstop. He then took second on a infield groundout to second. A second fielding error by the shortstop allowed the run to score, this time off the bat of Amendola.
The Hawks return to conference play with a four-game weekend series at UMBC this weekend. Hartford and the Retrievers will begin the series with a doubleheader on Saturday beginning at 4:00 p.m. in Baltimore, MD.
