On Tuesday afternoon, the Binghamton baseball team took the road for a nonconference matchup against Penn State before the start of its America East (AE) campaign this weekend. Despite a strong start from the Bearcats — scoring the first run of the game — BU was unable to come away with a victory as the Nittany Lions piled 15 unanswered runs, and the visitors fell 15-1.

“Our three freshmen did a pretty good job pitching,” said Binghamton head coach Tim Sinicki. “We got a good start out of [freshman pitcher] Dan McAliney — [freshman pitcher] Andrew Fingleton came in, and although he gave up three runs, the runs came on what was a wind-blown home run, and [freshman pitcher] Aidan Pawlak made his season debut and threw a shutout inning. My biggest takeaway is that those three guys did a good job pitching for us.”

BU (8-8) and Penn State (12-5) held each other to a scoreless game through the first two innings, but both teams ended the drought in the third — adding a run each to the tally. Senior outfielder Cavan Tully led off the top of third with a single hit into centerfield. After the next batter flied out, junior outfielder Mike Gunning and senior first baseman Kevin Gsell slapped back-to-back singles to load the bases. Sophomore infielder Devan Bade capitalized on this opportunity, hitting a sacrifice fly that plated Tully to give the Bearcats a 1-0 lead. The Nittany Lions, however, responded in the bottom of the third with a run to tie the game, and then proceeded to put a three spot up in the fourth, a six spot in the seventh and four on the board in the eighth. What seemed like a tight game became a blowout as the hosts slowly piled onto their score.

“We had the bases loaded in the second and third innings, but we just couldn’t plate any runs,” Sinicki said. “It’s been a concern of ours all season — we haven’t been able to get guys in, even with outs. We have to practice more situational hitting, and hopefully we’ll be able to get outside more and get guys to look for more pitches to hit to the outfield and get guys in.”

What was a 4-1 game going into Binghamton’s half of the fifth inning became a 5-1 game prior to a Penn State offensive explosion in its half of the seventh. The Nittany Lions plated six runs on four hits in the bottom of the seventh and scored four runs on four hits in the following inning. After scoring in the third inning, Binghamton was unable to add any more to its total as the hosts cruised to a 15-1 victory.

Despite the lopsided score, the Bearcats tallied 10 hits as a team compared to 13 from the Nittany Lions. Gsell was the only Bearcat with more than one hit as he went 4-for-4, with a double and three singles. Additionally, the visitors left 12 men on base, compared to Penn State’s six over the course of the contest.

“[Gsell’s] been a middle-of-the-order hitter for us his entire [BU] career, and he’s swinging the bat as well as I’ve seen him swing the bat his entire career here,” Sinicki said. “He’s an experienced kid, and even though he missed all of last year, he is a young man we need to produce for us, and right now seems to be pretty locked in at the plate.”

Binghamton is slated to begin conference play against the defending AE Championship runner-up UMass Lowell on Friday, March 24 in a three-game weekend series. First pitch is scheduled for 3 p.m. at the Bearcats Baseball Complex in Vestal, New York.