Going up against teams from powerhouse conferences SEC and Atlantic Sun Conference, the Binghamton University baseball team had an up-and-down weekend. The Bearcats split two games against the University of Tennessee and were swept by Kennesaw State in the University of Tennessee Tournament.
Binghamton (1-6) picked up its first win of the year facing Tennessee (6-5), a member of the SEC which includes Vanderbilt, LSU, Georgia and Ole Miss. While the 7-4 win was followed by a 19-2 drubbing at the hands of the Volunteers, a victory against Tennessee was significant for the Bearcats.
“I’m not sure a school from our conference being outside for the first time should be in a position to beat an SEC school,” said Binghamton head coach Tim Sinicki. “But I think more importantly for us … we saw a glimpse of the type of team we could be if we play well collectively as a group.”
Spearheading the Bearcat victory was junior pitcher James Giulietti, the apparent heir to the No. 1 spot in the rotation. Giulietti went 5.1 innings, giving up just a single run despite surrendering seven hits. He struck out four while walking two, including the only baserunner to score off of him.
Tied at two after seven innings, BU scored four in the top of the eighth, including a two-run home run from junior Corey Taylor. Up 7-3 in the bottom of the ninth, Tennesse loaded the bases with one out. Sophomore reliever Alex Adami struck out the next batter, but walked in a run to cut the lead to 7-4. He limited the damage there, though, by striking out the final batter to end the inning.
Taylor and Ciocchi led the offense, combining for four hits and five RBI, but nine different players also got hits for BU. Sinicki was pleased with his team’s performance in every aspect of the game, but feels that the pitching was what stood out the most.
“I think that the only thing that has come into clear focus for us at this point is that Giulietti has certainly progressed developmentally to a point where he can be a front-end guy for us; he’ll be our one or two all year long,” Sinicki said. “We kind of had an inclination that it would go that way, but he’s proved that to be the case … We’ve got to continue to try to get more consistent efforts from the rest of our staff … That’ll be the key to our season, the development of our young pitchers.”
While the win was a bright spot for the team, it was one of few over the weekend. The victory came after a 10-7 loss to Kennesaw State (4-8), a 30-win team last season. Sophomore Mike Augliera started the game, giving up five runs in 4.2 innings. The Bearcats stayed close early, holding a 6-5 lead going into the sixth. A three-run sixth inning put the Owls up for good, though, and they held on for a 10-7 victory. Bearcats junior right fielder Peter Bregartner had three RBI, and five players had multi-hit games.
The low point of the weekend came on Saturday against Tennessee in the form of a 19-2 loss. Freshman starter Jay Lynch gave up 11 runs in 2.1 innings, and the potent Bearcat offense was kept quiet by Tennessee senior starter Stephen McCray, who threw eight shutout innings while striking out seven. Bregartner had one of the team’s two hits, knocking in two runs in the ninth with a triple. Sophomore Matt Parker performed well for BU, giving up just one earned run in 4.2, striking out seven in that span.
BU bounced back with a better performance the next day against Kennessaw State, though the end result was the same. Binghamton picked up 15 hits but scored just five runs in a 10-5 loss. Junior Henry Dunn led the way with a 2-for-5, 2-RBI day, while Bregartner hit his second home run of the year. Sinicki praised his offense for working counts, allowing other hitters to see more pitches, even if it didn’t always translate to runs.
“Those types of things are what you expect from an experienced group of hitters,” he said. “So statistically is only a part of what they’re doing for us right now.”
While playing four games this early in the season, especially against two quality programs, is difficult, the team knows it is just another aspect to the baseball season. Sinicki noted that having a long weekend so early presents a challenge in terms of wearing players down early in the year, and having to use nearly every pitcher on staff in order to avoid high pitch counts for young hurlers. The key, he suggested, is to keep things in perspective.
“Those are some of the challenges that you face when you have four in a weekend early on. But you know what, that allows us to get everybody in, allows us to see where guys are at, what adjustments we need to make with them and kind of where they are in the developmental process. For outsiders looking in, I know everyone wants to see if you win or lose, but there’s so many other things internally that we look for in these early series’.”
The Bearcats play again this weekend on the road against the University of Maryland, Eastern Shore. The teams are scheduled to play a doubleheader on Saturday, followed by a game Sunday.