The baseball team lost all three State University of New York Athletic Conference (SUNYAC) games against SUNY Oswego on Saturday, April 4 and Sunday, April 5.
The weekend began with the Hawks losing the first game of a doubleheader by a score of 12-2.
The score of the game through three innings had Oswego up 1-0. The Lakers then scored five runs in the fourth inning to go up by a score of 6-0.
Some offensive bright spots for the Hawks included third-year shortstop Andrew DiNardo’s 2-for-4 performance including a double. Fourth-year co-Captain Mike Sparacino also went 2-for-4 and knocked in a run. Fourth-year pitcher Tyler Mitts pitched three innings in relief, surrendering just one unearned run.
Later that day the Hawks were defeated by a score of 10-3. This was the third time this season that the Hawks dropped both games of a doubleheader, previously losing on Saturday, March 14 against Heidelberg University and on Friday, March 20 against SUNY Cortland.
Some offensive highlights include the performances of Hawks first-year infielder Jake Williams and third-year outfielder/catcher Taylor Anderson. Williams went 3-for-4 with a run batted in (RBI) and scored a run. Anderson had a 2-for-3 day and scored two runs.
Head Coach Matt Righter praised the performance of those two players in the series against Oswego.
“Positives against Oswego? Obviously not the outcome, but I thought we had some individual performances that were worth noting,” Righter said. “Williams hit the ball really well. We’ve played against the two toughest schools in our conference, Oswego and Cortland, but Jake is batting around .350. Anderson, someone who we converted from an outfielder to a catcher, has not been perfect but he has done a nice job back there and he has really picked us up when we needed it.”
The next day the Hawks lost to Oswego by a score of 10-0. The loss dropped the team’s record to 3-13.
Sparacino got the lone hit for the Hawks on the day and Williams stole a base after accumulating a walk. Fourth-year pitcher Jesse Vahamonde pitched two and two-thirds innings in relief, surrendering just one run.
On Thursday, April 2, the Department of Athletics, Wellness and Recreation announced that the Hawks would not be playing on their home field, Loren Campbell Memorial Field, for any remaining games of the 2015 season. The field has an unplayable surface and the Hawks will play their home games at Cantine Park in Saugerties for the remainder of the season. Coach Righter said not playing at home hurts in a couple of different ways.
“Number one, it’s really difficult for our seniors who don’t get an opportunity to play at home,” he said. “I think they were looking forward to that quite a bit. Also, we don’t get to practice on that field because it’s not ready for a bunch of different reasons. When you don’t get to practice on grass, it really affects your playing approach when you play a game on grass. If you’re practicing on turf or in the gym, and then you go out and play on grass, you get different hops and different reads and it has shown. We’ve had five or six errors each of the past five or six games.”
On Wednesday, April 8 the Hawks’ conference game against SUNY Oneonta was cancelled due to impending rain in the forecast. It will now be played on Wednesday, April 15 at 7 p.m.
The Hawks will travel to Fredonia this weekend to play a trio of SUNYAC games against the Blue Devils. Their first game will be on Friday, April 10 at 3 p.m. and then the two teams will play a doubleheader the next day.