The Aquinas baseball team was not able to figure out the pitching of USC-Beaufort in the doubleheader loss on Thursday (Mar. 10) in Hardeeville, South Carolina. The Sand Sharks won both of the games by the scores of 7-4 and 8-1 over the Saints. AQ now has a record of 6-13 on the season.
GAME 1: USC-Beaufort 7, Aquinas 4
After giving up two runs in the first inning on a two-run home run by the Sand Sharks, the Saints strung together multiple hits in the second inning and took a 4-2 lead.
Four straight batters reached to being the inning as
Braden Nawrocki drew a walk and
Nathan Wilcox doubled to left center field to put two in scoring position.
Braden Brown and
Jake Paganelli collected an RBI singles to bring in both runs. Then
Kelvin Aracena laid down a sacrifice bunt to move up the runners and
Mark Binkowski was hit by a pitch to load the bases.
JD Gillies reached on a fielder's choice to bring in Brown and
Dane Smitz singled in
Anthony Arnold (pinch runner) for the fourth run.
Mason Hill settled in on the mound after giving up the two runs in the first. Then the sixth inning came and Hill was unable to record an out as his record dropped to 0-3 on the season. In five innings (plus three hitters) of work, Hill allowed five runs on six hits and four walks.
Garrett Cheslek came in for Hill and finished out the inning as Cheslek allowed another two runs on four hits.
The Sand Shark scored five runs in the sixth inning to go up by three and end up with the win.
GAME 2: USC-Beaufort 8, Aquinas 1
USCB jumped on the Saints in the first inning to score four runs on four straight RBI singles.
Conor Gausselin suffered his first loss on the season after pitching four innings and giving up six runs (four earned) on 10 hits, while striking out six.
The Saints scored their only run of the game in the fourth inning as Smitz reached on an error and Arnold was able to score. The Sand Sharks responded with two more runs in the fourth inning, then a run in each of the fifth and sixth innings.
Hunter Morrison came in from the bullpen to begin the fifth, throwing two innings and surrendering two runs on three hits and two walks, while striking out two.
Nathan Hughes and Smitz both had two hits a piece in the second game with Brown also having two hits in the first game.
Aquinas will wrap up the four-game set and its spring break schedule with another doubleheader tomorrow (Mar. 10), beginning at 11:00 AM.