Second Edition Of Riley's Ramblings

Throughout the 2011 baseball season, sophomore Alex Riley (Baldwinsville, N.Y.) will be providing insights on this year's UB team from a player's point of view.  Below is the second installment of Riley's Ramblings, as Alex takes a look at the Purple Knights' in action from April 4-10, 2011.

RILEY'S RAMBLINGS-EDITION Two

A week ago today the baseball team entered our conference bye week. The two foes on our schedule included a game against Post, along with a double header against Nyack.  Coming into the week hot off of a lengthy winning streak after sweeping C.W. Post, we went to the field on a mission to keep the good times rolling in Bridgeport. These three regional games meant a great deal to us entering the week as every win against these teams means that we have a greater chance of making regionals as a possible at large bid.

For the first game, we set out on the 40 minute drive to Post University in Waterbury.  There we had a seesaw back and forth battle between a team that I believe was very comparable to ours.  Nick Vautrin started this game working out of a first inning jam with minimal damage.  After this he hit full stride and played the same consistent baseball that has won us several games in the past. Eric Schlitter knocked in an RBI, while Matt Ranaudo drove home the easiest run of his life to tie the ball game up as he was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded. "Big" Tom Wiacek then took the mound and threw great, but took a very tough loss as he allowed 2 unearned runs in the bottom of the 8th.  All four runs of this game allowed by Bridgeport were unearned.

This loss was not taken easily by the squad as the trip back home was totally silent.  All of us subliminally knew that we had to absolutely dominate Nyack coming up to show that this loss was a fluke, and it would not effect us reentering conference play.  We also knew that we had to perform better in clutch situations in order to take advantage of beneficial scenarios the opponent hands to us.

For the first game against Nyack, Shaun Hancock gave us the spark we needed throwing zero's up in the run column each of the five innings he hurled. The bats then exploded as Matt Nassi, Mike Delellis and Matt Ranaudo picked up multiple RBI's.  Another pleasant sight was to see Tyler Moffatt coming back off of a hamstring injury to absolutely drill two balls to the left center gap.  It seemed as if every time a runner enterred scoring postion in this game, our hitting would find away to knock them home.  The second game was highlighted by more of the same as Ant Plomitallo kept us in the ballgame exiting after the fourth inning allowing only two runs.  Chris Maull came in to shut them down two consecutive innings, and then Matt Bartolomei slammed the door in the seventh inning for the second time that day capping off another Bridgeport sweep.  The hitting in this game was highlighted by Eric Schlitter, who gave himself an excellent 21st birthday present by knocking in three runs.

The sweeping of Nyack was absolutely vital as we are facing off in a series against the fundamentally sound St. Thomas Aquinas College entering this week.  STAC was the only team to sweep UB last year.  So the team urges all of the Bridgeport faithful out there to stop by and cheer us on as winning this series would put the Knights in the drivers seat, making us the team to beat in the ECC.