WEST LONG BRANCH, NJ – The Monmouth baseball team split a doubleheader with UMass Lowell Friday, winning the opener 5-4 before falling 10-7 in the nightcap. The Hawks conclude regular season play 29-25.
In the opener, MU scored all of its run in the first two innings to jump out to a 5-0 lead. Grant Lamberton (Newark, DE/Salesianum) walked and worked his way to second on a ground out before Chris Gaetano (Madison Township, PA/Scranton Preparatory) dropped a double into left to make it 1-0. An infield single by Cary Jacobson (Los Angeles, CA/Palisades) and a walk to Ryan Bailey (Mount Kisco, NY/Fox Lane) filled the bases before Aidan Favia (Short Hills, NJ/Millburn) drove an 0-2 pitch into the gap in left center to plate two and make it 3-0.
MU went up 5-0 when Gaetano doubled again in the second, this one to left center. MU starter Frank Trimarco (Merrick, NY/Sanford H. Calhoun) kept UML off the board for five innings before the River Hawks got two in the sixth. Oscar Marchena singled to right to score one, and Mark Tumosa scored a second with a double down the line.
The River Hawks chipped away with sacrifice flies to plate runs in the seventh and eighth innings to cut it to 5-4 before Justin Andrews (Langhorne, PA/Neshaminy) came on to strike out the side in order in the ninth to lock down the 5-4 win.
Trimarco picked up the win, his seventh and Andrews earned his seventh save. Gaetano drove in three for the Blue and White with two doubles. Steve Xirinachs allowed all five Monmouth runs and took the loss, while Ricky Constant threw six scoreless innings in relief. Marchena had three hits for UML.
In Game Two, Lamberton singled and Christian Holland (Pittsburgh, PA/Baldwin) walked to set up a three-run home run to right center off the bat of Dan Shea (Wilmington, DE/Salesianum), his team-leading seventh of the season to make it 3-0 Monmouth.
UMass Lowell struck back for a pair in the second, scoring after Chris Sharpe led off with a triple off the right field wall and Marchena drove him in. Ian Strom later drove a run-scoring single up the middle to make it 3-2 MU.
MU added a run in the third on another Gaetano RBI hit to make it 4-2 after three, driving in Lamberton with a base hit to right. UMass Lowell answered with a five-run fourth inning, getting a Strom RBI single and scoring on a wild pitch to tie the game. A chopper on the infield scored the lead run, and Steve Passatempo hit an opposite field two-run homer to make it 7-4 UML.
Gaetano drove in his fifth run on the day after Holland doubled down the line in the fifth and Gaetano's lined single to left center scored him to make it 7-5. UMass Lowell got an RBI double in the sixth from Passatempo to regain the three-run lead, 8-5 before an error made it 9-5 and a single from Sharpe extended it to 10-5 River Hawks.
Holland plated a run by dumping a base hit into right in the sixth to cut it to 10-6, and Shea ripped a single to right to make it 10-7, the closest Monmouth would get.
