MANHATTAN, KS – The UMass Lowell baseball team (3-6) dropped game two of the weekend series against the Kansas State Wildcats (6-3) 17-3 on Saturday afternoon.
 
Sophomore Carlos Martinez (Coamo, Puerto Rico) went 3-4 with three doubles and two RBIs to lead the offense. Senior Trey Brown (Rochester, N.Y.) went 2-3 with one RBI while junior Conor Kelly (Hopkinton, Mass.) tallied his first hit of the season.
 
Junior LJ Keevan (Holden, Mass.) fell to 0-2 on the year. Keevan went 4.0 innings and struck out six. Sophomore Michael Simes (Rutland, Mass.) and freshman Cam Sime (Pittsfield, Mass.) went 1.1 and 1.0 frames, respectively, and struck out three hitters each.
 
Keevan earned his first strikeout in the first inning while the defense looked sharp early, turning a 6-4 double play to end the frame. UMass Lowell had three hits in the first two innings and Keevan struck out two more in the bottom of the second.
 
Junior Alex Luccini (Hopedale, Mass.) opened the scoring in the third with a two-out RBI double to score Martinez and give UMass Lowell the lead. The Wildcats answered in the bottom half of the inning, scoring six runs to jump ahead. Conor Kelly's bunt put a man on in the fourth before Trey Brown's RBI single make it a 6-2 game.
 
Michael Simes entered the game for Keevan and struck out two in a scoreless fifth. Kansas State tacked on three runs in the bottom of the inning to push the lead to 9-2. The River Hawks' defense made a nice 4-6-3 double play ended the inning.
 
UMass Lowell would tack on another run in the top of the seventh after Alex Luccini's leadoff single out a runner on. Carlos Martinez hit his third double of the day to bring in Luccini and cut the lead to six runs.
 
Kansas State's offense found a rhythm and scored eight runs in the seventh and eighth innings to take a commanding lead. UMass Lowell could not find a way back and fell in game two.
 
The series finale is set for 2:00 p.m. on Sunday, March 3.