The University of Richmond baseball team, hoping to bounce back from last weekend’s sweep, dropped two out of three games against the University of Rhode Island on April 4-6.
URI was ranked seventh in the conference preseason poll against Richmond who was ranked first. The Rams come into the series 16-12 overall. Last year, the Spiders got a series win over the Rams, winning two out of the three games.
The Spiders started quickly in the first when graduate outfielder Phil Bernstein scored on a wild pitch. Later in the inning, Richmond tallied two more runs off of a double by graduate infielder Brady O’Brien, giving the Spiders a 3-0 lead after half an inning of work.
The Rams struck back in the bottom of the inning, scoring on a sacrifice fly ball, cutting the deficit to two.
UR extended its lead in the 2nd with a two-run double by sophomore catcher Jack Arcamone, giving them a 5-1. The Spiders let in four runs in the following inning, allowing the Rams to tie the game at 5-5.
From there, the Spiders took over. Junior pitcher Ryan Bilka came in and threw over five scoreless innings. In the fifth, a two-run single by senior shortstop Connor Larson gave the Spiders the lead again. This was followed by Bernstein's sacrifice fly to extend the lead to 8-5.
Finally, in the 8th, O’Brien collected his second hit of the game with a two-run homerun, putting the Spiders on top 10-5, which held for the remainder of the game.
“I think the big thing was that Bilka came in and kinda settled the game down right.” Head Coach Mik Aoki said postgame. “He gave us 4 or 5 pretty strong innings where we kinda controlled the game from the mound.”
The second game of Friday’s doubleheader stayed scoreless through the first inning, when a pair of singles in the bottom of the 2nd saw the Rams score five runs.
The offensive onslaught would continue as the Spiders allowed seven more runs in the bottom of the 4th, increasing the Ram’s lead to 12-0.
After giving up another run in the 5th, the Spiders would finally get on the board off of junior infielder Jordan Jaffe's double, scoring 13-1. Then, in the bottom of the 7th the Rams would add another 7 runs. After a scoreless 8th and 9th, the Rams finished on top 20-1.
After a day off, Sunday’s game got off to a hot start, with Richmond scoring three in the 1st thanks to a pair of RBI singles from O’Brien and senior outfielder D.J. Pacheco. The Spiders would then extend this lead in the 3rd after home runs from O’Brien and graduate outfielder Aaron Whitley, and a single Trevor Dosenbach who would later score on a wild pitch, extending the Spiders lead to 7-0
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The Rams would get on the board at the bottom of the frame after a hit by pitch would bring in a run. Later in the inning, they would get two more off of a sacrifice bunt and wild pitch, cutting the lead to 7-3.
In the 4th, O’Brien added another run on his second home run of the day. The Rams would grind back with four runs in the 6th and 7th off two singles and a sac fly. At the top of the 8th, Whitley would score in a sac fly, giving the Spiders a 9-7 lead
This lead would, unfortunately, not last. At the bottom of the 8th, the Spiders gave up 5 runs after a double and single by the Rams. UR would fail to score at the top of the 9th, losing to the Rams 12-9.
After a very hot start, the Spiders have lost 5 of their last 6 games, all coming against A-10 opponents.
“I just think we just have to focus on getting better,” Aoki said. “A lot of that comes from the mound without any question. I think our guys need to pitch better and execute pitches better. [... ] A lot of it is being able to handle some of the bumps in the road, an error or a negative play. [... ] I don’t know if we have been as good as I would like for us to be in order to handle those little moments of adversity.[…] If we can improve in those two areas, we’d be in pretty good shape.”
The Spiders look to bounce back April 11-13 with a home series against the University of Massachusetts Amherst. The Minutemen are second to last in the Conference and on a six game losing streak. Richmond will be playing them for the first time since 2023, which Richmond won 2 of 3 in a series
Contact sports writer Grayson Dossett at grayson.dossett@richmond.edu.
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