Bucknell Baseball took on Patriot League foe Army in a three-game series this past weekend on the road. Despite a tough series, the Bison dropped two out of three.
Bucknell wasted no time getting hot with the bat in game one, as Billy Kender ’25 knocked one over the fence for a home run on the opening pitch of the weekend. That wasn’t it for the hit fest in the first, though, as Jacob Corson ’24 ripped a homer two batters later to give the Bison a 2-0 after the first.
But, the Orange and Blue would watch the lead slip fast as Army tied the game 2-2 at the end of the first and then took the lead for good with two more runs in the second. Corson, who had two of Bucknell’s four hits in game one, knocked an RBI single to make the game 4-3, but Army added one more insurance run to seal it.
Tyler O’Neill ’25 started on the mound and pitched five innings, striking out five before getting pulled following five runs and eleven hits allowed. The Bison dropped game one 5-3.
In game two, the bats continued to stay hot for the Orange and Blue, and it proved to be too much for the Black Knights as the Bison would tie the series up 1-1 with a 10-6 win.
Bucknell got on the board in the second inning after a solo homer from Grant Voytovich ’24. The scoring stalled in the game until Chris Morabito ’27 ripped a three-run blast in the fourth inning to put the Bison up 4-0. Later in the fourth, Kender shot one over the fence after a Brady Karp ’25 double to put Bucknell up 6-0. Karp later ripped a grand slam in the fifth to make the contest 10-2.
Jake Schultz ’27 started in the second game, allowing three runs, five hits and striking out four batters across his five innings of work. Graeme Carroll ’24 came in for three relief innings to seal the deal.
On Sunday in game three, the scoring was high, but Bucknell was on the wrong side of a blowout, dropping game three to Army 14-4.
Jack O’Malley ’27 started on the mound for Bucknell and struggled giving up four runs in the first, then Army made it 6-0 after three.
The Bison got themselves right back into it with a four-run fourth inning, but errors and mistakes on defense cost the Bison the victory in the end. Army would score four runs in the bottom of the fourth and then six more in the fifth to put the game out of reach.
“Practice will be very focused this week in all aspects,” Karp said. “Defensively, every out is big, so we will try to finetune our team defense going into the weekend. Limiting free bases is crucial in conference play so that will be a major focus the next two days.”
This weekend, Bucknell hosts Lafayette for a three-game series beginning Friday at 3:30 p.m.
