LOWELL, Mass. – The UMass Lowell baseball team (11-18, 4-4 AE) fell to the Merrimack Warriors (14-17, 10-6 NEC) 9-5 on Tuesday afternoon.
 
Junior Brandon Fish (Londonderry, N.H.) and senior Roddy Hernandez (Jersey City, N.J.) each tallied two hits to lead the team. Sophomore Carlos Martinez (Coamo, Puerto Rico) scored two runs and tallied a hit while five River Hawks recorded one RBI.
 
Sophomore Jacob Jettte (Franklin, Mass.) fell to 1-2 on the year with six earned runs in 1.2 innings. Senior Andres Hulfachor (Nashua, N.H.) went 2.0 innings and struck out four while graduate student Kevin Zarnoch Jr. (Boston, Mass.) went 3.1 innings with two strikeouts.
 
The Warriors jumped out to an early lead with a leadoff home run on the first pitch of the game. Jacob Jette struck out one and escaped the inning with just the one earned run. Junior Conor Kelly (Hopkinton, Mass.) made a great line drive catch for the first out of the second inning as Merrimack had a runner on second. The Warriors tacked on five runs to lead 6-0 in the second inning.
 
Kevin Zarnoch took over to close the second and came back out for the third. Merrimack's offense kept coming and tallied another run in the third, stretching the lead to 7-0. The River Hawks struggled to find a rhythm offensively and went into the fourth still searching for their first hit.
 
Zarnoch tallied his second strikeout of the night in a scoreless fourth inning. Carlos Martinez made a nice sliding grab to record the final out of a scoreless fifth as UMass Lowell still trailed by seven. Roddy Hernandez hit a two-out single in the fifth to get the River Hawks their first hit of the day, but the hosts could not get on the board.
 
Andres Hulfachor entered the game in the sixth inning and opened the frame with a big strikeout. After a double, Hulfachor tallied his second strikeout of the inning and got some help from his defense to bring the offense back to the plate.
 
Senior Frtiz Genther (Kingston, Mass.) and Carlos Martinez tallied hits in the bottom of the sixth before graduate student Matt Tobin's (Poland, N.Y.) RBI single to center brought in one run. Brandon Fish followed with a single to left to load the bases before junior Jake Fitzgibbons (Franklin, Mass.) drew a walk to score a second run. Hernandez hit a single to center and scored Tobin, cutting the lead to 7-3 through six. Hulfachor continued to pitch well and struck out two in another scoreless inning.
 
With two on in the seventh Conor Kelly drilled one up the middle to score Luccini from second to cut the lead down to three. Brandon Fish followed that with a single up the middle that scored Martinez to make it a 7-5 game. Merrimack answered with a two-out, two-run homer to push the lead back to four runs.
 
Freshman James Capellupo (Hilton, N.Y.) came in for the ninth and retired the side to give the River Hawks one more chance to mount a comeback. UMass Lowell went down in order in the ninth and fell 9-5 to Merrimack.
 
Next up, the River Hawks host Stonehill on Wednesday, April 10. First pitch is set for 3:00 p.m. at LeLacheur Park.