Jays dominate McDaniel 15-3 after losing two

After surprisingly losing both games of a doubleheader to
Franklin & Marshall last Saturday afternoon in Pennsylvania, the
Johns Hopkins Baseball team rebounded with decisive victories on both
Monday and Tuesday against Centennial Conference opponents.

As a result, the Blue Jays now sport a 19-4 overall record and a 7-2
mark in conference play. With a 15-3 victory over first-place McDaniel
in Westminster, Maryland on Tuesday afternoon, Hopkins is now within
one game of first place in the conference. Another win against the
Green Terror on Friday would bring the Blue Jays into a tie for the top
slot.

"We still feel pretty confident about winning conference," noted senior
starting pitcher and co-captain Jeremy Brown. "It's the nature of the
game that you're going to lose sometimes, but the best team usually
comes out on top."

The Blue Jays had an offensive explosion against McDaniel. They cruised
to a 12-run victory, compliments of a 21-hit outburst and dominant
pitching. Hopkins has now scored ten or more runs in nearly half of its
contests this year and now averages 10.2 runs per game in '03.

Another impressive pitching performance from Hopkins' staff lowered the
team ERA to 3.54. The win allowed the Jays to breathe a sigh of relief
after uncharacteristically dropping two in a row last Saturday to
F&M. Hopkins appears to be back on track, and just in time. The
Jays are heading into a stretch of eight games, six of which are
against conference opponents, in the next seven days.

The Blue Jays started out slowly, allowing the McDaniel to grab a 2-0
lead after two innings. However, in the top of the third, the offense
produced seven runs on five hits and two errors. Senior outfielder and
co-captain Joe Urban commenced the rally with a single, while junior
catcher Doug Hitchner then drew a walk and scored after senior
outfielder Jay Cieri smashed a two-run triple.

Sophomore second baseman Mike Spiciarich reached safely on an error by
McDaniel's shortstop, bringing home Cieri. Sophomore outfielder Paul
Winterling followed up with his team-best tenth home run of the season.
Junior outfielder Craig Cetta kept the inning alive with a double and
was along for the ride on sophomore first baseman Mike Durgala's
two-run home run.

Hopkins would increase its lead to 8-2 in the subsequent inning,
courtesy of an RBI double from freshman shortstop Corey Gleason.
McDaniel added a run in the bottom of the sixth, but Hopkins responded
with three runs in the top of the seventh to maintain a commanding
lead.

Durgala drove in two of three runs with a double and then scored himself
on a single by Urban. Cetta drove in junior shortstop Tim Casale with a
single in the top of the eighth inning and Durgala forced in a run
after getting hit by the pitch in the same half-inning. Hopkins
finished off the scoring in the top of the ninth inning, tallying up
two more runs on hits by junior catcher Bryan Eberle, sophomore
outfielder Eric Nigro, and freshman outfielder Gary Rosenberg.

Junior Sven Stafford earned the victory, pitching six strong innings and
giving up just three runs (two earned). The relief pitching of Matt
Righter was just as dominant, as he silenced McDaniel's offense for the
final three innings to seal a 15-3 victory for the Blue Jays.

This win came on the heels of Hopkins' record-setting 32-run outburst on
Monday, April 13 against Washington College. Hopkins belted eight home
runs on the day, three of which came off the red-hot bat of Winterling.
Washington only brought home two runs.

Included in Winterling's Ruthian performance were two grand slams,
making him just the ninth player in NCAA Division III history to hit a
pair of grand slams in a single game. Winterling also knocked in eleven
runs, one short of the Centennial Conference record. Though Winterling
stole the show, the rest of the Blue Jays excelled at the plate. 15
different players got at least one hit and 13 different Blue Jays
recorded at least one RBI.

Junior pitcher Russell Berger held Washington College to two runs in six
innings to improve his record to 4-0 on the season. Sophomore Jason
Hochfelder and junior Adam Josephart combined for three scoreless
innings of relief to seal the 32-2 victory for Hopkins.

"I think after suffering such tough losses last weekend, it was
important for us to come back strong against Washington," remarked
Brown, who took the loss in the first game of the doubleheader against
the Diplomats last Saturday, despite surrendering just two runs in six
innings of work.

The Blue Jays' offense could not string together any rallies in the 2-1
loss. Franklin & Marshall scored first in the bottom of the second
inning, but Hopkins tied the score in the top of the sixth inning with
an RBI single from Durgala. Nevertheless, Franklin & Marshall
regained the lead in the bottom of the inning on a wild pitch and held
on in the top of the seventh to attain the victory.

The Blue Jays' bats struggled again in the second game, and they lost by
the same score. Although they came out aggressively, putting multiple
players on base in the opening inning, Hopkins managed to score only
one run. This would be the extent of the Blue Jays' scoring and the
Diplomats scored the winning run in the bottom of the seventh inning,
handing sophomore Ryan McConnell his first loss of the year. McConnell
pitched six-and-one-third innings, allowing just two runs, but could
not get any run support from his teammates.

One main reason for the Blue Jays' struggles was the one-week period of
inactivity. All games were scratched from the schedule because of
inclement weather.

"Basically, it was just tough because we hadn't played in a week due to
the rain. We just couldn't hit the ball," stated Hitchner. "Our
pitchers pitched well. We simply beat ourselves."

Brown felt that the team had been a bit too confident going into the
games and hoped that these losses would serve as a reminder to the Blue
Jays to take every game seriously.

"Other teams go into games against us thinking it is their biggest game
of the year and get excited for it," he said. "We go into the games
assuming that we will win and we don't really get excited when we do.
We need to reevaluate our approach to the Centennial Conference. We
thought we had the title in a lockbox, but on any given day, we could
lose our home-field advantage or even our playoff spot if we don't play
our best."

Hopkins dropped five slots in the rankings to No. 11 after its two
losses on Saturday, but the team recovered quickly with the big wins
over Washington and McDaniel.

Hopkins returns to the diamond on Friday at 3 p.m., as they host
McDaniel. The Blue Jays then head to Haverford for a conference
doubleheader on Saturday. They wrap up their week with a doubleheader
away at Ursinus and a non-conference opponent, Gwynedd Mercy, on
Wednesday at 3:30 p.m. in Baltimore.