After getting rained out last weekend, the Binghamton University baseball team was able to come back and split a doubleheader against Cornell University this past Tuesday.
Binghamton (2-7) took the first of the two games in a 5-3 win but dropped the second game, 7-2. Tuesday’s games were well-needed after a long, undesirable break.
“You can’t really replace that with practice. At this time of the year we practice a lot, it’s inside and so we were disappointed to get rained out,” said Binghamton head coach Tim Sinicki. “We continued to practice to the best of our abilities inside but after a while it gets a little bit monotonous. We were thrilled to … schedule a couple games with Cornell on Tuesday and that certainly helped us … move forward as a team.”
Coming off a good start, junior starter James Giulietti has transitioned into the position of ace pitcher smoothly. He went six innings, giving up only two hits with no runs. This performance lowered his ERA to 1.10.
“Well it’s kind of what we need out of James this year,” Sinicki said. “He’s been able to slide into the role of being our No. 1 starter and it’s going to take those types of consistent performances to really help us be a good ball club.”
Junior outfielder Peter Bregartner contributed to the win with two singles, knocking in junior Henry Dunn in the fourth inning and adding two more RBI in the seventh. Senior shortstop Jeff Abrams extended Binghamton’s lead with a double that scored two more in the sixth inning.
Sophomore pitcher Alex Adami held Cornell at 3, getting the final out in the seventh. He recorded his first save of the season.
The Big Red answered back in the second game of the doubleheader. Binghamton starting pitcher Mike Aguliera took his second loss of the season, lasting only 3.2 innings. Aguliera gave up four runs on four hits, with five strikeouts.
Dunn and junior catcher C.J. Lukaszewski were the only sparks in the Binghamton offense. Dunn tied the game, 1-1, with a homer in the fourth inning. Lukaszewski added the only other run with a double in the fifth inning, but that was not enough to break Cornell’s great pitching.
The Bearcats are looking to rely on the rest of their offense going into this weekend at Lehigh University, without Bregartner, who tweaked his hamstring in the middle of Game 2. Bregartner currently leads the team in batting average and RBI.
“He is a little questionable for this coming weekend,” Sinicki said. “It’s still early in our season and we’re not going to take a chance on risking a further injury or getting to a point where he could miss significant time but based on his performances we would need guys obviously who would fill in for him to really kind of pick up the slack that he’s been really able to provide for us.”
Aside from the offense, the outcome of this four-game weekend will also depend a lot on the performance of the pitching staff.
“Our pitchers, their arm strengths are getting better and their ability to go deeper into the games is getting better … we are looking to get five, six, maybe seven innings out of some of our starters,” Sinicki said. “The key for us will be to get quality starts in all four games and that will lessen the pressure in our bullpen and lessen the amount of innings they’re going to have to throw.”
The team looks forward to a jam-packed weekend at Lehigh with two doubleheaders. The first is scheduled for Saturday at noon, and the second is scheduled for Sunday at noon.