VESTAL, N.Y. – In a heartbreaking end to the 2019 season, the UMass Lowell baseball team dropped a pair of games at the America East Championship on Thursday.
In the day's opener the River Hawks (20-36) led Stony Brook, 6-2, before an one-hour and fifteen minute rain delay heading into the bottom of the eight inning. The Seawolves scored five unanswered to walk off with the 7-6 victory.
In the elimination contest, Hartford overcame a 3-0 deficit with one run in the fourth and a five-run rally in the sixth inning. UMass Lowell scored three runs in the first two innings and added a fourth in the comeback attempt.
GAME 1
Ciaran Devenney (Manalapan, N.J.) connected on a three-run homer in the top of the fourth, and
Oscar Marchena (Miami, Fla.) added his second two-run shot in the eighth to put the River Hawks on top by four.
Trailing 2-0 heading into the fourth, Marchena began a string of three hits with a one-out single and advanced to third on
Steven Passatempo's (Medford, Mass.) ground-rule double, bringing up Devenney. The junior took the two-strike offering and launched it over the fence in right field to give UMass Lowell the edge.
The score remained the same until the eighth when
Mark Tumosa (Willington, Conn.) led off with a single and came around to cross the plate on a
Joey Castellanos (Nutley, N.J.) single to right center. It was Marchena's time to add to the lead as he smashed his second homer of the tournament into the left field bullpen, putting a pair of insurance runs on the board as the River Hawks took a 6-2 buffer.
Coming out of the rain delay, Stony Brook climbed back within one with a pair of home runs, and in the ninth completed the comeback with a walk-off two-run homer.
GAME 2
The River Hawks got off to a hot start behind
Joey Castellanos' (Nutley, N.J.) first career home run in the first and Tumosa's two-run single in the second.
Henry Funaro (Lowell, Mass.) escaped a bases-loaded jam in the first and kept the Hawks scoreless until the fourth.
Castellanos led off the eighth with a triple and crossed the plate on Marchena's sacrifice fly as the River Hawks tried to rally.
Following his four-hit, five-RBI performance including a pair of home runs, Marchena was named to the All-Tournament Team.
