The Georgetown men’s baseball team (12-16, 0-3 Big East) received a rude welcome to Big East play this weekend, losing three straight games at the hands of the Xavier Musketeers (16-13, 3-0 Big East), who are newcomers to the conference this season.
The Hoyas were plagued by sloppy play in the field all weekend, committing a combined 10 errors resulting in 13 unearned runs over the course of the three game series.
Will Brown, the starting pitcher in Georgetown’s 11-6 defeat on Sunday, witnessed firsthand what errors can do to a solid pitching performance. The junior pitched six solid innings, surrendering only one earned run on eight hits allowed. However, mistakes in the field led to four unearned runs, putting the Hoyas in a deep hole early in the game. Despite the blunders, Brown stressed that fault couldn’t be placed on any one individual.
“The most important thing is to stay together as a team,” Brown said. “There’s no blaming or finger-pointing. There’s plenty of other games where we made no errors and they picked me up when I had a bad outing … That stuff happens in baseball, it’s a sport.”
Despite the series sweep at the hands of the Musketeers, off the field, the Hoyas had a clear victory. Earlier this season, the Hoyas partnered with St. Baldrick’s, a childhood cancer charity that funds research to help kids diagnosed with cancer.
As of Saturday evening, the Hoyas had raised $46,000, the second largest total ever raised by a college baseball team in St. Baldrick’s 14-year history.
Georgetown senior captain Steve Anderson, who spearheaded the fundraising efforts, has a personal connection to the difficulties surrounding cancer that St. Baldrick’s works to alleviate. Anderson lost his mother to cancer at age eight and a portion of the funds raised by the team will be donated to the Dana-Farber Institute of Boston, where his mother received treatment.
“[The event] really surpassed my wildest dreams about what it could become,” said Anderson. “I started back in December and January, planning it all out, thinking if we could get $15,000 that would be amazing … It was a pretty emotional day, not just for me, but I think the team really rallied behind the whole effort. We make a real difference…It was pretty special.”
On Wednesday, the Hoyas hit the road to take on George Mason, but fell 6-5 against the Patriots. Next up for the Hoyas is a three game set this weekend in Omaha, Nebraska, against the Creighton Bluejays (15-10-1, 0-0 Big East). For Georgetown, rediscovering their identity as they enter the heart of Big East Conference, play will be crucial.
“The thing they say about baseball is that you play so many games that a couple of games, here and there, early on don’t determine the whole season,” Anderson said. “We’re looking forward to getting back out there.”
