Baseball Edged by Hartford on Wednesday

The Central Connecticut baseball team fell to 1-4 on the season after they were edged by Hartford 4-3 on Wednesday afternoon in New Britain. Three costly errors by the Blue Devils resulted in three runs for Hartford in the game. The Hawks improve to 4-7 with the victory.

Hartford struck first with an unearned run in the top of the third inning off CCSU starter, senior Jesse Frawley. The Hawk's, Aaron Wilson reached on a throwing error and scored after the next batter, Nick Campana, doubled to the left-center wall.

The Hawks would add another in the top of the next inning following another double to the left-center wall, this time by Ben Bengston, driving in Dalton Ruch.

Hartford would make it 4-0 in the top of the fifth inning, plateing a pair of unearned runs off sophomore releiver Brett Susi.

Junior catcher Connor Fitsimons, who started at third base for CCSU today, made a great backhand diving play with the bases loaded, but his throw home short-hopped the catcher, allowing the run to score and left the bases still loaded. The next batter would also ground out to Fitzsimons, but drove in another run to make it 4-0.

However, the Blue Devils would answer and cut the Hartford lead in half with two runs in the bottom half of the inning. With the bases loaded, junior Corey Lerche pinch hit and got CCSU on the board with a sacrifice fly to deep left field, allowing all of the runners to move up a base. Senior Dominic Severino followed and struck out, but the ball got passed the catcher to bring in the second run of the inning for CCSU.

Trailing by two runs heading into the bottom of the ninth, the Blue Devils made things interesting once again. Central has already played in two extra inning games out of four this season, coming from behind in the bottom of the ninth in both cases. Today, Central made it 4-3 after back-to-back two-out doubles from Learche and Severino, but would get no closer as Hartford's John McGinty shut the door, picking up his second save of the season for the Hawks.

Kevin Tise picked up the win for Hartford on the mound and moves to 1-0 on the season after pitching two innings of hitless ball.

Frawley was delt the loss and drops to 0-2 on the season after four full innings of work on the hill. He allowed two runs, one earned, on four hits and three walks. He struck out three.

Lerche finished 2-for-2 with a double and a pair of RBI's and Severino picked up the third RBI of the game, finishing 1-for-3 with a double. Fitzsimons also had a pair of hits on the day.

The Blue Devils will return to action this weekend with a three-game set starting on Friday at VMI. First pitch between the Blue Devils and Keydets is scheduled to begin at 4 p.m. on Friday afternoon.