Over the past week, the baseball team started out strong with two wins away against New York University and Bridgewater State University. Then, playing against Washington University in St. Louis this past weekend, it failed to come out on top after losing both games.

Judges 0, WashU 8

On Sunday, shortly after its first game, Brandeis played WashU again and still failed to come out on top. Washington had a fast start to the game, as it had three runs in the first inning against Brandeis.  The Judges, already exhausted from the first game, put up a fight as second baseman Tim Lopez ’20, designated hitter Kyle Lussier ’19 and third baseman Marvic Gomez ’17 got hits off WashU pitchers, but it was not enough. In the final innings, WashU came back to score four more times. After a long day of baseball, Brandeis was unable to come out on top playing in Boston.

Judges 0, WashU 1

Earlier that day, Brandeis lost its winning streak against WashU. The game started and ended slowly. The first few innings did not go anywhere until WashU scored in the top of the third inning. Throughout the game Brandeis could not seem to catch up. Lussier and shortstop Victor Oppenheimer ’20 had potential with their hits, but it was not enough to get the team back on track. As the game came to a close, neither Brandeis nor WashU scored in the final innings, leaving the victory to WashU’s only run of the day.

Judges 8, Bridgewater 2

On Wednesday, Brandeis began a winning streak at Bridgewater State. The first few innings started off slow, with both teams failing to score. By the top of the third, the Judges began to pick up the pace with runs scored by first baseman Joshua Rakowsky ’20 and designated hitter Frank Rybicki ’20. After that the game slowed down a bit as the Brandeis pitchers only allowed a total of eleven hits and two runs for the middle of the well-played game. 

Brandeis held the lead the whole game, and even with a victory clinched the team continued to show great effort in the final two innings. In the top of the eighth, catcher Jacob Stone ’20 and Oppenheimer scored. In the top of the ninth, Oppenheimer scored again, as did right fielder Anthony Nomakeo ’17, to make it a total of four runs attained in the last few innings. Brandeis had begun a two-game winning streak after picking up this win.

Judges 12, NYU 6

Last Sunday, Brandeis had a strong start to the first inning at NYU with three runs by Oppenheimer, Lopez and senior center fielder Ryan Tettemer ’17.  The team had the confidence it needed to finish strong for the rest of the game. 

Senior pitcher Liam Coughlin ’17 held off the NYU batters with only two hits and two runs allowed, as did Kyle Shedden ’20 and Daniel Schupper ’19. In the top of the seventh alone, Lopez, Oppenheimer and Stone all scored, as did designated hitter Bradley Bousquet ’18, Nomakeo and shortstop Jay Schaff ’17. Tettemer started the inning with a run and ended it with an inside-the-park home run, adding up to eight runs in total by Brandeis. Although NYU tried to make a comeback with four runs in the last two innings, it was not enough to pull ahead as the Judges finished their four-game series against NYU with a win.

Despite the two wins, the Judges now sport a 4-18 overall record for the season.  The team is batting .202 with a very low .287 on base percentage.  While the squad has been unable to put themseleves in position to score, their pitching has also been problematic.  The Brandeis pitchers have combined for an overall ERA of 5.01, and an even higher 5.97 ERA in conference play.  As a result, they are 2-12 in the University Athletic Association conference.  The team has shown immense potential, though, and should look forward to more wins as the season progresses.