A chilly Tuesday night at Blair Field did not deter the mindset of the Dirtbags as they shut out the Bruins in a 2-0 win.
The Dirtbag offense was riding the coattails of the pitching staff who pitched a stellar game, giving up six hits and no runs. Sophomore lefty Van Larson was the opener for the game in an attempt to create as many left-on-left matchups as possible and he went 1.2 innings and got through the lefty-heavy top of the Bruins order.
“We executed in big spots, even though we weren’t banging the ball around, it felt like we were putting constant pressure on them,” head coach Bryan Peters said.
Freshman Josh Donegan would take over on the mound for Larsen and would pitch excellent in his appearance. Donegan threw 5.1 innings, striking out six and allowing no runs on four hits.
“My mindset was just be aggressive, work ahead in the count and try to get them out as soon as possible,” Donegan said.
Runs were hard to come by for both teams until the bottom half of the third when sophomore third baseman Ty Borgogno hit a line drive down the left field line for a double.
Junior right fielder Kyle Ashworth came up to bat two batters later and hit a sacrifice fly to center field to bring Borgogno and put the first Dirtbag run on the board, making it a 1-0 contest.
From then on both sides again were stagnant as they could not get anything going offensively.
The top half of the eighth would be Donegan’s last inning of work as he ran into trouble to start the inning. After a fielding error by the true freshman shortstop Adrian Lopez and a successful hit-and-run by the Bruins, there were runners at the corners with no outs.
With the Bruins finally on the brink of putting a run across and a chance to potentially tie the game, the Dirtbags turned to freshman pitcher Nick Williams to get them out of a sticky situation.
Williams would deliver the most important shutout inning of the game and strike out the next three Bruins to retire the side and keep the lead heading into the bottom of the eighth.
“Nick Williams was the player of the game for us because it was such a big moment in the game with a lot of pressure,” Peters said.
In the bottom half of the inning, The Dirtbags would tag on an insurance run by way of an RBI single by Ashworth that would score junior center fielder Alex Champagne making it a 2-0 Dirtbag lead heading into the bottom of the ninth.
Junior pitcher Mike Villani would be tasked with getting the final three outs of the game and earning the save, and he did just that and secured his third save of the season while Donegan would be credited with his second win.
This win improved the Dirtbags’ record to 9-1-1 as they head to Wichita State to face the Shockers in a three-game set starting Friday before they come back home on Wednesday to Blair Field to host Dartmouth.