FROM CBB NEWS SOURCES
AMHERST, Mass. – After spotting visiting Holy Cross an early 7-0 lead, the UMass bats came alive as the Minutemen (6-10) pounded out 16 hits, including four home runs, to defeat the Crusaders (8-14), 16-9, on Tuesday afternoon at Earl Lorden Field. Brian Baudinet (Watertown, Conn.) hit a pair of solo shots, his third and fourth of the season. Mike Donato (East Hartford, Conn.) dealt the biggest blow, a fourth inning two-out grand slam, in what turned out to be a seven run inning for the Minutemen. Adam Tempesta (Brockton, Mass.) also went deep for UMass. Freshman Garrett Butt (Marlboro, Mass.) (1-0) pitched four innings of relief to earn his first-career victory. Aaron Smith (Westfield, Mass.) tossed three shutout innings to close the game and earn his first save of the 2008 campaign.
Dmitri Serendeko allowed five runs in three innings of work to take the loss for Holy Cross. Matt Perry led off the game with a home run and Jake Gorman added a shot in the second.
The Crusaders got to UMass starter Nathan Monroy (Flemington, N.J.) early, posting seven runs off nine hits combined in the first two innings.
UMass came back with single runs in the second and third innings before tying the game at nine aside with the big fourth inning. The Minutemen used four hits, two walks, and one hit batsman in the inning. The Minutemen kept on scoring after that. They added two in the fifth, courtesy of a Tempesta solo shot and Kyle Multner (Peabody, Mass.) tripled and later scored. They posted three more in the sixth, thanks to Baudinet’s second bomb that was followed up by hits off the bats of Jim Macdonald (Cheshire, Conn.) and Donato. They each scored on RBI by Bryan Garrity (Peabody, Mass.) and (Andy Tuetken (Smithfield, R.I.). UMass went on to tack on two more runs in the eighth to put the game out of reach as the bullpen didn’t allow Holy Cross to score from the fifth inning on.
The Minutemen return to action on Friday when they head to George Washington University to take on the Colonials in a weekend A-10 series.
