The Bearcats rode dominant starting pitching and solid hitting to stretch their winning streak to six games Tuesday, only to see that streak end just hours later.
The Binghamton baseball team split its doubleheader with Niagara, winning the first game 9-0 before dropping the nightcap 3-2 in the first home games of the year. In the opener, senior starter Jarrod Rampey held the Purple Eagles’ hitters at bay all afternoon, allowing just three hits in a complete-game shutout.
“He threw great today,” said head coach Tim Sinicki. “He was a big pitcher for us last year, and we expect the same from him this year.”
Rampey struck out six and walked just one to lead the Bearcats to their longest winning streak since moving to the Division I level. After the game, Rampey credited his performance to the entire team.
“The ‘D’ backed me up a lot today,” Rampey said. “Basically I wasn’t out there looking to strike anybody out, I was just letting the defense take over.”
The rest of the team backed up Rampey at the plate as well. Junior second baseman Matt Simek led off the third inning with a solo home run to give Binghamton a 2-0 lead. The Bearcats’ lead would be stretched to nine after a seven-run fifth inning, which featured five hits and five walks. Junior first baseman Brendan Hitchcock delivered an RBI double that inning, and freshman left fielder Ken Jacobi drove in two more runs with a double.
Junior right fielder Jeff Monaco opened up BU’s scoring with a two-out RBI single in the first. With a triple in the second game, Monaco now finds himself in the midst of an eight-game hitting streak, and leads the team with a .420 batting average.
“I’m just locked in right now,” Monaco said. “Every time I come up I feel like I can hit the ball.”
Senior righty Seth Redemacker continued the Bearcats’ streak of dominating starting pitching in the second game, allowing just one earned run in five innings of work, but relievers Nick Bogdanoff and Adam Shatkun struggled on the mound.
Niagara would score the winning run in the sixth inning after a double, wild pitch and infield single hit toward third base. Bogdanoff gave up the double before giving way to Shatkun, and was credited with the loss.
“It feels like we lost more than one game out there,” said senior center fielder Aaron Davis. “We probably should have focused more. Sometimes you lose games you should win, but we’ll bounce back.”
BU managed just five hits in the game, and stranded seven runners. The Bearcats had the go-ahead run on first base with two outs in the bottom of the seventh, when Simek sent a rocket to right-center that was caught to end the game.
“[Splitting] is not good enough,” Sinicki said. “If we settle to do that, we’re a .500 team. That’s not good enough. We have to have a little more of a killer instinct.”