The Brandeis baseball team continued its strong finish to the season, defeating Trinity College 2-0 and 3-1 in an afternoon doubleheader at Stein Diamond today. The Judges have now won four-straight games to move to 14-20 on the season, while the Bantams fall to 20-15. It was Brandeis' first victory against Trinity since 2006, ending a 10 game head-to-head losing streak.
The story of the first game was pitcher Kyle Brenner (Brookfield, Mass./St. Peter-Marian), who had a dominating compete-game shutout. Brenner yielded just two hits and two walks, striking out a career-high nine batters. After losing his first five decisions of the season, Brenner has pushed his record to 4-5 and cut his earned run average to 3.46.
Brandeis scored both of its runs in the fourth inning. Rookie center fielder Liam O'Connor (Avon, Conn./Avon) led off the home half of the frame with his first career triple, and senior left fielder Nick Cortese (Guaynabo, P.R./Baldwin School of Puerto Rico) smashed the first pitch he saw up the middle to plate the Judges' first run. An error and a wild pitch moved Cortese over to third base, and sophomore 2b Tom McCarthy drove him home on a groundout.
The top of the order had most of the offensive production for the Judges, as the 1-2-3 combination of senior catcher Chris Ferro (Walpole, Mass./Walpole), O'Connor and Cortese combined for two runs, an RBI, a steal, and five of the team's six hits.
Rookie John Meuchner (Rockville Centre, N.Y./Pittsford Sutherland) picked up the loss for the Bantams despite allowing just one earned run in five innings.
The second game featured another pitchers duel. Junior Brian Ing (Sandwich, Mass./Sandwich) started the game and gave up one run in three innings of work. Rookie James Machado (Dracut, Mass./Dracut) relieved Ing in the fourth inning and put in the best outing of his young career. Machado allowed the first batter he faced to reach on a single, but besides a fifth-inning error, did not allow another Bantam to reach base. The rookie pitched four innings in all, striking out six batters to earn his first career victory.
The Judges plated all three of their runs in the first two innings of the contest, and all with two outs in the inning. Cortese hit a two-out single through the left side in the bottom of the first inning, and Brenner promptly lashed a double down the right field line to score the run. In the second, senior 3b Pat Seaward (York, Maine/York) reached on an infield single and took second on an errant throw. Senior right fielder Dylan Britton (Poughquag, N.Y./Arlington) singled up the middle to drive in Seaward, and promptly picked up his first career stolen base. Ferro tripled to deep center field, driving in Britton for Brandeis' third run. In total, eight different players each added one hit for the Judges.
Rookie Dylan Callahan (Greenwich, Conn./Greenwich) picked up the loss for the Bantams to fall to 1-3. Sophomore Evan Abraham (Pacific Palisades, Calif./Brentwood) had his best outing of the year in relief, allowing just three baserunners in three scoreless innings of work. Sophomore left fielder Scott Huley (Greenwich, Conn./King) went 2-for-3 in the game, the only player from either team that finished with more than one hit.
Brandeis will play host to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on Tuesday at 3:00 p.m. The team's final game of the season will be on Wednesday afternoon against UMass Dartmouth.
-Jeffrey Boxer