Coming off a road sweep of Middle Tennessee, the Binghamton baseball team suffered a series loss back at home to UMass Lowell over the weekend. After winning the series opener 5-1 on Saturday, the Bearcats dropped both games on Sunday’s doubleheader to the River Hawks, 7-5 and 17-4, respectively.

“’[Our performance overall was] not good enough,” said Binghamton head coach Tim Sinicki. “You can’t get a performance like you got yesterday out of [Driscoll] and then come out and lay an egg today. That’s just not acceptable. I can’t put my finger on it. We just weren’t good in any phase of the game today. Unfortunately, it’s a bad day at the ballpark. It’s not what this program is about.”

Led by senior pitcher Gabe Driscoll’s complete game of one-run baseball, the Bearcats [12-15, 3-6 America East (AE)] recorded a 5-1 win over the River Hawks (11-17, 4-4 AE) in the series opener. Driscoll added nine strikeouts while only surrendering four hits, one walk and one run on 111 pitches. In his first at-bat back from injury, junior second base Nick Roselli sent a changeup 420 feet over the right field fence for a two-run home run in the first inning. Senior outfielder Tommy Reifler went four-for-four and scored three runs for the Bearcats. In the second inning, Roselli added a sacrifice fly, while junior outfielder Logan Haskell added two RBIs to round out BU’s scoring.

“It’s as good as we’ve ever had an ace pitch for us,” Sinicki said. “[Driscoll] was everything you want an ace to be. He controlled the game. He wanted to go out and finish. He had really good stuff. That’s what you want your ace to do. I’m glad [Roselli] hit [his home run]. It was almost storybook, but [Roselli] would trade [his home run] for three wins this weekend, I know that.”

The Bearcats dropped the opening game of Sunday’s doubleheader 7-5 after holding a 4-2 lead going into the sixth inning. Senior pitcher Nelson Berkwich gave the Bearcats five innings, allowing three runs on five hits and four walks while striking out four. Junior third baseman Devan Bade drove in two runs on two hits, while graduate student first base Sam Haney added two hits, including an RBI double in the seventh inning. However, UMass Lowell put up a four spot in the top of the sixth to take a 6-4 lead, which it maintained the rest of the way.

“You can’t be up 4-2 and throw four straight balls to walk the leadoff hitter and set the stage for [UMass Lowell taking the lead in the sixth],” Sinicki said. “I thought a couple balls fell in that we should have caught and from there, the rest of the bullpen didn’t get the job done. Disappointed in the way our bullpen pitched today. It’s hard to find good things to say when we played like we did today.”

In the rubber game, BU opened up the scoring with two runs in the first, but the River Hawks scored a run in every inning from the second to the sixth. Reifler, Roselli and senior outfielder Mike Gunning collected multiple hits for BU — with Gunning driving in a run in the seventh to make the game 10-4 — but the River Hawks added three runs in the eighth and four in the ninth to cement a 17-4 win.

“You jump out to a two-nothing lead and then you just can’t have balls go into the backstop and giving a team an opportunity to literally walk their way back into the game and then take their lead,” Sinicki said. “We’ve got to block those. We’ve got to be better both on the throwing end and the receiving end. That immediately opened the door for them and then the bullpen just imploded. It was a bad effort by everybody.”

On the weekend, Reifler led the Bearcats with six hits, while Roselli collected three RBIs in his first weekend back from injury. Driscoll’s performance on the mound Friday brought his ERA down from 4.10 to 3.50 while moving to 46 strikeouts on just seven walks for the season.

“[Driscoll’s] been a lot better more times than he hasn’t been,” Sinicki said. “That’s what we need out of that guy in that number one spot. [Reifler and Roselli] are veteran guys, and we expect them to be the guys that kind of lead the way for us. But if you’re just going to rely on one starting pitcher and a couple guys in a lineup, you’re going to end up losing two out of three more than you win two out of three.”

The Bearcats will look to bounce back as it hosts Le Moyne on Tuesday, April 9. First pitch is set for 3 p.m. at the Bearcats Baseball Complex in Vestal, New York.