April 29, 2005

Game 1 Box Score | Game 2 Box Score

PROVIDENCE, R.I. - The Yale baseball team scored five runs in the third and four in the fourth to come back from a 5-0 deficit and three relievers pitched 2.1 hitless innings to hold off Brown for an 11-8 win in the second game of a doubleheader at Aldritch Field. Shaun McNamara pitched a complete game to lead Brown to a 5-2 win in Game 1.

Marc Sawyer had four hits, four RBI and two runs on the day. He doubled in the second game to tie the school record with 16 two-baggers this season. Justin Ankney was 4-for-8 with two runs scored and two driven in. Chris Esper had three hits and three runs in the nightcap.

Starter Mike Mongiardini (2-2) struck out seven in 6.2 innings to get the win in Game 2. He left Colin Ward-Henninger, Adam Barrick and Brett Rosenthal with a 9-8 lead, and none of the three allowed a hit. Rosenthal got his fourth save. The Bulldogs struck out 10 batters on the day to push their season total to 292, a new Yale team record. The previous mark was 286 by the 2001 Bulldogs.

Game 1

McNamara (3-1) held the Bulldogs (23-15, 10-8 Ivy League) scoreless until the final inning and surrendered six hits with four strikeouts. Paul Christian had two doubles and two RBI for the Bears (20-18, 12-6), and Danny Hughes was also 2-for-3.

The Bears jumped ahead with a run in the first on a double by Christian, followed by a Matt Kutler RBI single. Yale starter Alec Smith stranded Brown runners on first and third in the second, and Brown got a runner on in the third before Yale second baseman Zac Bradley made a diving stop on a ball hit up the middle to start an inning-ending double play.

Yale threatened in the top of the fourth, when John Janco followed a Sawyer single to right with a double high off the fence in left center. Jake Doyle drew a two-out walk to load the bases, but Brown first baseman Hughes fielded a grounder and beat C.J. Orrico to the bag for the third out.

Brown tallied three runs on just one hit in the fourth. Two walks and a Bryan Tews single loaded the bases with one out, and Bobby Wiginton reached on a Yale error to bring home the first run. Christian was then hit with a pitch, and Kutler drove in the third run by beating the throw to first on a would-be double play.

Wiginton was hit by a pitch in the sixth and scored from first on a Christian double to make it 5-0.

Matt Stone reached on an error to lead off the Yale seventh and scored on a booming triple by Orrico to deep center. Orrico then scored easily on Josh Zabar's pinch hit to left center, but McNamara retired the final two batters to end the game.

Smith (4-3) surrendered four earned runs on eight hits in a complete game.

Game 2

The Bears got off to a good start in search of a sweep when their first five batters reached on two walks and three singles. Three runs scored on a passed ball and RBI singles by Devin Thomas and James Lowe. Brown led off the second with a Tews walk and consecutive singles by Jeff Nichols and Christian to score a run. With two outs, Lowe made it 5-0 with a bloop single to center to score Tews.

The lead did not last long, as the Bulldogs tied it with five runs in the third. Esper led off with a walk and moved to second on a Bradley bunt before Ankney and Sawyer hit back-to-back doubles to cut it to 5-2. After Janco walked and Stone singled, a Doyle groundout scored Sawyer. Orrico then tied it up on a two-run single up the middle.

Brown loaded the bases with one out in the fourth, but Mongiardini struck out one batter looking on a breaking ball and got the next to ground in back to him for a force at the plate to end the inning.

With one out in the fourth, six straight Elis reached first, five on base hits. Sawyer hit a single to right to plate Esper and Bradley. After another Janco walk, Stone ripped a hit down the rightfield line to score Ankney and Sawyer, giving Yale a 9-5 edge.

Ankney and Esper each had three hits and reached base four times in the game, and Sawyer drove in four runs. Janco was 0-for-1, but got on six times on four walks, two intentional, a hit-by-pitch and a wild pitch on a strikeout. Bradley reached four times on two hits and two walks.

Brown scored a run on a Tews triple in the fifth, then added two on a single by Kutler that fell just out of Esper's reach in shallow rightfield with two outs in the seventh. Ward-Henninger then entered to record a big, inning-ending strikeout. Barrick came in to face one batter, getting an eighth-inning-ending double play.

Reliever Chris Davidson got the Bears out of trouble in the top of the eighth, inducing a pop-up with runners on second and third and striking out two straight hitters with the bases loaded to keep Yale's advantage at 9-8. The Bulldogs loaded the bases again in the ninth and took advantage. Ankney was hit by the first pitch he saw to plate Orrico, then Sawyer grounded out to second to score Esper.

Rosenthal retired all three batters he faced in the ninth, the last on a swinging strikeout. His save completed Yale's second comeback from a 5-0 deficit in two days and its third in less than two weeks. The other two comebacks came against Fairfield and Hartford.

The teams will meet again Saturday in a doubleheader at noon at Yale Field. The Bulldogs stand two games back of the Bears in the Red Rolfe Division with two to play and three games back of Harvard (12-8). The Crimson start a four-game series with Dartmouth on Saturday.

report by Casey Hart, Yale Sports Publicity