The Georgetown baseball team grabbed its first win of the 2006 campaign, taking one of three games from the Davidson Wildcats. The Hoyas (1-3) split a double-header on Sunday and then dropped the deciding game on Monday in Davidson, N.C. Georgetown was edged 10-5 in the opener but then bounced back with a 7-4 victory.
The President’s Day finale left Georgetown on the short end of a 5-2 defeat, as five Davidson pitchers combined to throw a two-hitter against the Hoyas.
In the first game of the series, Wildcat hurler Rob Wilson kept the Hoyas’ bats at bay, throwing for six shutout innings. Wilson chipped in on the offensive end as well, batting in three runs, while Davidson steadily built up a sizeable lead. Down by nine runs heading into the seventh, junior catcher Brandon Davis, following a leadoff walk by sophomore designated hitter Matt Harrigan, smacked a two-run homer over the left field fence. Later in the seventh, with one out, sophomore Matthew Maranges singled to right, bringing home senior Matty Johnson. Johnson made it a 10-4 deficit with a sacrifice fly in the eighth while Davis added an RBI walk in the ninth. The Hoyas failed, however, to bring home another runner, leaving three men stranded in each of the last two innings.
Round two of the Hoyas’ day-night doubleheader against the Wildcats saw Georgetown’s offense snag an early lead. In the top of the second, junior Mark McLaughlin forced a two-out pitch down the right field line for a two-run triple. The Hoyas added another two runs when sophomore third baseman Matthew Bouchard tripled to right center field. The Hoya batsmen knocked in two runs in the fifth, and senior captain Ryan Craft capped off the win with a seventh inning solo shot to straightaway center field.
“We hit the ball pretty darn well on Sunday,” Craft said. “On the day, we had 21 hits and 12 runs, thats pretty solid offense.”
Georgetown right-handed senior starter Stephen Burns surrendered four runs on five hits over the first four innings, on his first win. Freshman reliever Darren Sizemore shut down all nine batters he faced to close out the final three innings and secure the victory.
In the tie-breaking rubber match, Davidson’s sophomore southpaw Brant West silenced the Hoyas’ offense, limiting them to one run on two hits over five innings. Four Wildcat relievers continued the trend, not allowing a hit over the final four stanzas. Two-run homers off the Davidson bats in the first and fourth innings put the game and the series out of reach.
“The game we want to worry about is the third game,” Craft said. “We came out and had two hits against a mediocre lefty who was throwing a lot of curveballs, a lot of changeups, and keeping us all off-balance. That’s the game we were upset about.”
Georgetown will host a double-header against St. Joseph’s on Saturday, Feb. 25 at Shirley Povich field in Bethesda, Md.
