Sehawks Salvage Weekend after Shaky Saturday

UNCW dropped two of three at William & Mary

As long as the game has been played, there’s been some form of the famous refrain, “That’s baseball.”

Hall of Famer Casey Stengel probably captured the spirit of it best.

“Well, that’s baseball. Rags to riches one day and riches to rags the next.”

What else could explain how this weekend transpired for UNCW?

A team that had been snagging every tough grounder, making every throw and finishing every double play was suddenly bit by a few ill-timed defensive mistakes.

A team that had recently been punishing the baseball just couldn’t string together the hits it needed to break through for the big inning and left 19 runners on base.

And on the flip side, a William & Mary team that had averaged 2.7 runs over its first 10 games found a way to put up 12 in a doubleheader.

Such is baseball and such was life for the Seahawks this weekend, who were shocked in Saturday’s doubleheader before rebounding with a 4-1 victory over William & Mary on Sunday.

Box Scores: Saturday 1 | Saturday 2 | Sunday

“Nothing was easy this weekend; the whole series could have gone a different way,” Coach Randy Hood said in the postgame radio interview. “We could have won two out of three, could have won all three, could have gotten swept — it’s kind of all three games were. Glad we were able to salvage a game today, and hopefully, we’ll learn from this experience and build off it and get ready for next week.”

Here’s what we learned from the weekend in Williamsburg:

Paying for Mistakes

UNCW was one throw from making it five straight games without an error when Taber Mongero’s toss to first sailed high, keeping William & Mary alive before Jack Cone drove in the game-winning run in the series opener.

After 44 straight innings of flawless, and at times spectacular, defense, the Seahawks learned an unfortunate lesson about how quickly one mistake can change the course of a game.

That wasn’t the end though, as the Tribe ultimately plated eight unearned runs in the series, including five in the second game on Saturday, W&M’s 7-6 win, with the difference being a passed ball that moved Cone to third, allowing him to score on a sacrifice fly.

There’s plenty of proof this is a good defensive team and one shaky weekend doesn’t change that. Defense can occasionally be overlooked, and hopefully, this drives home just how important it’s been to the Seahawks’ success.

Staying Focused

Saturday felt eerily similar to the last time UNCW knocked off a top-10 team in the midweek and followed it up with a weekend dud at Towson in 2013.

Even with a limited crowd at Brooks Field on Wednesday night, there was plenty of energy and emotion in the air.

There’s just no way to duplicate that on the road in a stadium that isn’t even allowing player families in and it obviously hurt.

“I told them, ‘Just want to see you guys get up for the weekends in conference play like we do for midweeks,’” Hood said on Sunday. “They’re all important for us; we’ve got to play solid people in midweek and we’ve got to win those games, but the conference is huge too, and we need to never take anything for granted. Everybody is going to give us their best shot and I was proud of the guys, coming ready to play today.”

Defense was a part of the bigger lesson that UNCW learned — even a struggling team has the weapons to beat you if you’re not on top of your game.

“I never want to say that losing is good, but we faced some adversity and a couple of situations where we didn’t play as clean of defense as we have all year and it hurt us each time we made those mistakes,” Hood said. “We made some baserunning mistakes and offensively, we didn’t do some things we’ve been doing over the five or six games to be successful.”

The Seahawks had a pretty good approach at the plate, striking out just 15 times in the series and piling up 30 hits in the series — the offense just couldn’t take the next step, leaving 19 on base.

Pitching Positive

It wasn’t all bad!

By and large, UNCW pitched well enough to win all three games this weekend as Landen Roupp turned in another strong effort, giving up two runs on four hits over 7.2 innings on Saturday while freshman Ryan Calvert took another big step with his effort on Sunday, allowing one unearned on three hits in five innings on Sunday.

W&M led off with a double against Calvert on Sunday, and given the way things had gone Saturday, things could have spiraled.

Instead, he sat down 15 in a row.

“He was great; we needed that,” Hood said. “The momentum could have easily switched real quick and he just dug in there, we played great defense behind him and he pitched great, made some big time pitches and really competed.”

Luke Gesell wasn’t bad, either, but fell victim to an error that keyed a big inning in the second game on Saturday, giving up six hits and six runs — four unearned — over four innings.

In all, the starter combined to strike out 13 while walking two and hitting two batters.

The bullpen had a few issues with control, walking seven in nine innings, but continued to dominate, allowing allowing seven hits and three runs — two unearned — while striking out 12.

Hunter Hodges was especially strong on Sunday, pitching four no-hit innings and avoiding trouble caused by four walks and a wild pitch.

On the season, the freshman from New Hanover has allowed one run on three hits in 15.1 innings, with opponents hitting .060.

“Just felt like Hunter kind of has that ‘It factor’ a little bit right now, and he’s pitched really well for us up to this point and did a really outstanding job today,” Hood said.

Hodges leads the team in innings out of the bullpen, and is tied with Adam Smith and Cole Benton at seven appearances.

Getting Hot, Staying Hot

Outfielder Dillon Lifrieri is settling in, with his .353 batting average up to third on the roster thanks to a 6-15 hot streak that started vs. ECU, adding two RBI over that span.

Lifrieri, in his first year at UNCW, was ranked No. 126 by Perfect Game in the Class of 2018, redshirting as a freshman at Arkansas season before playing 11 games at San Diego last season.

Meanwhile, the usual suspects stayed hot for the Seahawks as Brooks Baldwin went 6-15 in the series, pushing his average to .368 on the season. Over the past seven games Baldwin is 15-28 (.535) with four RBI, three doubles, a triple, a homer and just one strikeout.

Kip Brandenburg pushed his hitting streak to 19 games, going 4-10 in the series while Matt Suggs is now hitting .313 after going 6-11 vs. the Tribe with three RBI.

Noah Bridges continues to be the most intriguing talent on the roster, blasting a three-run homer on Sunday for his second of the season. So far, he has nine hits, two walks and was hit by a pitch — turning 10 of those into runs — but 17 strikeouts, hitting .200 on the season.

If he can raise that average or walk a little more, he’s better than even-money to score once he’s on the basepaths.

His 2-4 performance on Sunday could be the start of something for the redshirt junior, who missed time early this season with an injury.

“That was huge for Noah,” Hood said.

Up Next

N.C. State visits Brooks Field on Tuesday night (6 p.m., FloSports) and the Wolfpack (4-9, 1-8 ACC) hasn’t played at the level the program is accustomed to this season, surrendering an average of 7.8 runs and scoring 3.0 runs per game during its current five-game losing streak.

State has wins over Davidson (2), Campbell and Miami with losses to UNCG and Miami (2), while being swept by Georgia Tech and Louisville.

UNCW enters the game 6-1 vs. in-state opponents this season.