Xavier baseball’s struggles continue

By: Adam Purvis ~Staff Writer~

Men’s baseball has been up to a lot this past week, including an overwhelming victory over Georgetown on April 24 to begin their three-game series against the Hoyas and facing the University of Cincinnati at home. Xavier played UC on April 22 on campus with an 8-5 loss. Xavier was up 5-4, but the Bearcats would come back in the eighth and ninth innings with four runs, sliding into victory late in the game.

Xavier out-hit UC as a team 12-8 with hits from David Morton, Andre Jernigan, Ethan Schmidt, Patrick Jones, Joe Gellenbeck, Rylan Bannon and Nate Soria, who was three-for-five. This increased Soria’s teamleading on-base streak for the season to 20 straight games. Xavier crushed Georgetown in their series opening game with a dominating 17-4 victory.

The Muskies set their season high for runs and hit their most home runs since scoring six home runs against Dayton in April 2010. The Musketeers scored three runs in both the first and second innings of the game. They proceeded to get their third home run from Jernigan while Derek Hasenback would get his fourth home run of the season.

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Redshirt senior center fielder Brian Bruening connects with the ball in a game against Northern Kentucky University on March 27

The third inning would be almost as good as the first and second innings combined with five runs to make it 11-0 through a third of the game. The scoring would continue all the way through the sixth inning, including a three-run homer from Will LaRue. Georgetown was able to score a two run homer in the eighth but would not score after this. Five players ended up with multi-hit games including Hasenback, LaRue, Soria, Jernigan and Schmidt.

The rest of the series would end up in Georgetown victories, however, with far less scoring matches, the scores being 4-1 in the first game and 2-1 in the second game on April 26. A late rally in the second game of the doubleheader would end in a strikeout for the Musketeers, leaving players on base.

The Muskies will take the field against Dayton in Cincinnati at 4 p.m. on May 1 after a match was cancelled against Tennessee on April 29.