The Huskies were swept by Boston College in a home-and-home series.
UConn baseball had two of its toughest midweek tests this week, as Kansas State visited Storrs on Tuesday before the Huskies headed to Chestnut Hill to face Boston College Wednesday night. The Huskies handed the Wildcats a shutout defeat while they lost to the Eagles by six runs.
Tuesday: UConn 4, Kansas State 0
According to D1Baseball.com’s Aaron Fiit, Garrett Coe insisted upon starting this crucial matchup against Kansas State. Jim Pender acquiesced and was rewarded with four shutout innings from his big left-hander that set the tone.
The Wildcats recorded only five hits, one of which came after the sixth inning and just one of which went for extra bases.
Coe faced the minimum through the first two innings, as a single was erased by Matt Garbowski, who threw out Kaelen Culpepper trying to steal second, and only needed to work around a pair of two-out runners other than that as he struck out four.
While UConn had just six hits, four were for extra bases. They were moving runners in chunks and got four runs across the plate. Paul Tammaro stayed hot and knocked in the first run on a single through the left side, scoring Caleb Shpur to start a two-out rally. Tammaro came across for the second run just two batters later on a Korey Morton single up the middle.
Kansas State threatened in the fifth, getting a runner into scoring position with one out, but Joe Cinella retired the lead runner for the first of two fielder’s choices to emerge unscathed.
In the following frame, Matt Garbowski opened the lead up to 3-0 with a solo home run and Tammaro crossed the plate again in the eighth on an error.
In the seventh, English knocked in a single, spelling the end of Cinella’s night in favor of Jack Sullivan, who induced the ground ball to get a nifty 5-4-3 double play. Braden Quinn and Brady Afthim then combined to get the final five outs in no-hit fashion, with just one walk allowed each.
Wednesday: Boston College 8, UConn 2
Wednesday was much less kind to the Huskies, as they scored the first two runs and struggled the rest of the afternoon, coughing up eight unanswered runs to Boston College.
The offense started fast, as Bryan Padilla led off the contest with a single and scored on Luke Broadhurst’s eighth home run of the season.
From there, UConn sputtered. There were chances, as Tyler Minick doubled with one down in the second, while the lineup worked four walks and was hit by two additional pitches, but only one more runner reached third the rest of the day, doing so with two outs in the fifth when the team was already down 7-2.
Gabe Van Emon worked around a two-out free pass in the first and got the first two that came to the plate in the second, but the Eagles struck for two on the back of three singles and a walk before he retired the side. Overall, Van Emon allowed two runs on three hits, with a pair of free passes and three strikeouts over his two innings of work.
Tommy Ellisen came into the game in relief and while Boston College had three singles, he walked a pair of Eagles and threw a wild pitch, which helped plate three runs for the hosts. Two of them came on a bunt single where Broadhurst should have put the ball in his pocket. Instead, he threw to first when he didn’t have a chance to retire the runner, allowing the Eagle on second base to come all the way around.
Boston College wasn’t done, striking for two in the fourth on a double sandwiched between two singles, as well as another in the eighth.
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UConn (17-18) returns to Big East play for a series against Georgetown, which is atop the conference standings. First pitch from Tysons, VA on Friday is at 6 p.m.