Andrew Arnao
Staff Writer

The baseball team opened Patriot League play last weekend with a 1-3 showing at home against Holy Cross. The Orange and the Blue also dominated Lock Haven on Tuesday, but dropped their third contest of the week at Maryland 8-3. After the three games, the Bison now stand at 14-15 on the season.

Both of the games against Holy Cross on Saturday were well pitched by both teams. Game one featured a complete game by Dan Weigel ’14, who allowed one run on six hits over seven innings in a 3-1 victory. The Bison scored all three of their runs in the first inning, on a pair of RBI hits by Travis Clark ’13 and Scott Reed ’12.

Bryson Hough ’15 followed up with a strong pitching performance in game two, giving up two earned runs on seven hits, but the Bison offense was shut down in an eventual 3-1 defeat.

In the two games on Sunday, Holy Cross managed to take early leads and never looked back, winning game three 5-1 and game four 11-7. The Bison offense was limited in the first game, but six Bison had multiple hits in game four, allowing the team to end the series on a positive note offensively. Bob Donato ’12 also had his 21-game hitting streak snapped in game three but is still batting a team-high .421.

“This weekend was not our best weekend but it was a good reality check for what we will need to work on to win Patriots this year,” Clark said. “Our team reminds me a lot of the team we had two years ago when we went to the NCAA regional tournament.”

The offense carried its improvements from game four over to another home game against Lock Haven, where the Orange and Blue came out on top, 10-3. Pitchers Ryan Ebner ’12 and Jack Boehm ’12 did not allow any baserunners through 4.2 innings. Catcher Justin Meier ’14 led the offense with two hits, while three Bison recorded multiple RBIs.

Ending their three-game stretch at Maryland, the Bison were overmatched by a hot Terps offense that knocked up starter Russell Seidell ’12 for seven runs. Through seven innings, the Orange and Blue trailed 8-0, but managed to cut it to five in the top of the eighth. As a team, the Bison recorded six hits in the game with five of them coming from Donato and Gerry Runyan ’12.

The Bison will be back in action this weekend at home against Navy. The first game is at noon on Saturday.

“We have a solid older team again and we’re just a few steps from putting everything together and reaching our potential,” Clark said. “This week we will have a good chance of putting everything together and taking two victories into our weekend series with Navy.”