ALBANY, N.Y. – The UMass Lowell baseball team battled to a doubleheader split at UAlbany on Saturday. Behind a season-high 19 hits and four home runs, the River Hawks took game one, 12-4, before falling 7-1.
Steve Passatempo (Medford, Mass.) led the River Hawks (19-24, 10-10) with five RBi and two home runs in game one, while a trio of players drove in two RBI on the day. The win marked the fourth time in five years that UMass Lowell has recorded 10 conference wins.
GAME 1
The visitors took a 2-0 lead in the first inning on Passatempo's first homer of the afternoon, and never looked back as
Andrew Ryan (Rochester, Mass.) scattered eight hits in eight innings, while only allowing a pair of solo home runs.
After the junior's two-run shot, the Great Danes (18-19, 8-9) countered with a homer in the third to cut the gap, but five runs in the top of the fourth extended UMass Lowell's advantage to 7-1.
With one out in the frame,
Cam Climo (Billerica, Mass.) started a string of six straight River Hawk hits, including their second two-run homer of the contest courtesy of
Kyle Maurice (Exeter, N.H.).
UMass Lowell delivered four singles following the Maurice blast, with a pair of runs scoring on
Colby Maiola's (North Reading, Mass.) and
Mark Tumosa's (Willington, Conn.). Passatempo added his third RBI with a sacrifice fly to cap off the frame.
Each team scored in the sixth with Climo delivering a two-run single for the River Hawks and the Great Danes adding their second homer.
In the eighth,
Russ Olive (Chelmsford, Mass.) added to single-season record with his 13th long ball, and Passatempo went deep for the second time as the juniors went back-to-back to open up an 11-2 buffer.
Ryan struck out five and only walked one to pick up his team-high fourth win of the season.
Passatempo added his fifth RBI in the ninth, before the hosts added a pair as well.
GAME 2
For the second time this season, the Great Danes' Dominic Savino knocked off the River Hawks in a complete-game seven-inning performance.
Marc Wangenstein hit his second solo shot of the day to open the scoring in the bottom of the first. UMass Lowell picked up its first two hits of the second game in the third, but could not draw even on the scoreboard.
The hosts loaded the bases in both the fourth and fifth innings, scoring two and four runs in each frame, respectively, to open up a seven-run lead.
Olive doubled home Tumosa in the sixth to break the shutout bid.
The teams will meet on the diamond for the rubber game tomorrow at noon.
