OMAHA, NE – The UMass Lowell baseball team (3-9) rallied late but fell to the Creighton Bluejays (9-1), 13-8, at Charles Schwab Field.
 
Senior Trey Brown (Rochester, N.Y.) led the team going 4-6 with two RBIs. Junior Alex Luccini (Hopedale, Mass.) went 2-5 with a double and one RBI while sophomore Carlos Martinez (Coamo, Puerto Rico) also went 2-5 and had two doubles. Graduate student Ryan Proto (Centerville, Mass.) added a double and three RBIs.
 
On the mound, senior Frankie Venezia (Lyndhurst, N.J.) fell to 0-1 on the season and struck out two. Senior Zach Fortuna (Newburyport, Mass.) went 1.1 innings and struck out two. Graduate student Kevin Zarnoch Jr. (Boston, Mass.) and freshman Kevin Rourke (Londonderry, N.H.) each went 1.0 inning and sat one.
 
Trey Brown hit a leadoff single to center to get the River Hawks started in game two. Alex Luccini drew a walk to put two on before Ryan Proto's RBI double scored both runners to give UMass Lowell an early 2-0 lead. Creighton answered with a two-run home run in the bottom of the inning to tie the game.
 
Brown hit an RBI single in the top of the second after back-to-back walks opened the inning, putting the River Hawks back in front. Luccini followed with a double down the right field line to score Spencer Aubin before a sacrifice fly from Ryan Proto scored Brown, pushing the lead to three. Creighton scored six runs on five hits in the bottom half of the inning to take a 8-5 lead.
 
Fortuna entered the game to close the second and struck out two in a scoreless third to keep the deficit at three. UMass Lowell had the bases loaded in the top of the fourth after hits from Luccini and Martinez, but all the three were left stranded.
 
The Bluejays scored four runs on two hits in the fourth to push the lead to 12-5. Creighton tacked on another in the sixth. Spencer Aubin hit a leadoff double before moving to third on Hernandez's single to center. Trey Brown tallied his fourth hit of the night to bring in Aubin.
 
Aubin came in to score on a wild pitch in the top of the eighth to bring the River Hawks within six. With the bases loaded, another wild pitch scored Genther to make it 13-8. UMass Lowell could not cut further into the lead and fell in game two.
 
The River Hawks return to action on Friday, March 8 in game one of the weekend series at Oral Roberts.