The baseball team (17-22, 11-9 Ivy) clinched a spot in the Ivy League championship series last weekend — taking a pair of games from Princeton to secure the Gehrig Division crown. Before heading to Cambridge on Saturday to face Harvard, the Red had a scheduled doubleheader on the road yesterday against LeMoyne to close out the regular season. While the Red’s objective for the midweek contests was to continue its momentum, it instead ran into Ryan Toth, a junior right-hander who threw a no-hitter in game two of the twinbill yesterday, as Cornell fell 2-0. The Red also lost the first game, 6-1.
“Both of their pitchers did a nice job,” said head coach Tom Ford. “But, on the other hand we were not pleased by the way we attacked and chased some bad pitches. We were pressing a little bit in the second game to break up the no-hitter, but we have to give [Toth] a lot of credit.”
In the second game, Toth became the first LeMoyne pitcher to throw a one-man no-hitter in 12 years. The Cornell hitters could not muster any sort of offensive attack against him, as he walked only one batter and struck out six. The most impressive part of the performance is that it was done against a Red squad which has won seven of its last eleven games entering the doubleheader.
“We need to be locked in to swing the bats and we did not execute,” Ford said. “In the first game and the first few innings of the second game, we seemed to be on some pitches and we made some hard outs … We need to find a way to score more runs.”
As for the Cornell’s pitching staff, senior Conor Kelly got the start in game two, pitching four innings and allowing two runs on only one hit. Junior Andrew McEachin and freshman Walker Toma each pitched a scoreless inning to close out the game.
“For the most part, out pitching did pretty well,” Ford said. “We did well enough to put ourself in a position to win the game.”
The Dolphins’ Benn Gaal accounted for both of the runs off Kelly, as he scored in the second inning and delivered a solo home run in the fourth. The first run was unearned, as Gaal reached base on an error and came around on two other miscues by Cornell’s defense. However, Ford was not all that concerned with his team’s poor play in the field.
“We’ll get back tomorrow in practice and give them some ground balls,” Ford said. “I don’t anticipate it being a problem. But, there is nothing wrong with getting back to the basics either.”
The Red did not fare much better in game one off of LeMoyne starter Mike Lewis, who pitched a complete game shutout while scattering just four hits. Lewis struck out eight batters — five of whom were looked at called strike three. Cornell’s only run came in the third inning on a homerun by freshman Brian Kaufman.
Sophomore Kevin Conlin took the loss for the Red, surrendering six runs — only four of which were earned — in four innings of work. Senior Matt Light closed out the game with two scoreless innings in relief.
All in all, the Red will need to quickly forget about the two losses and focus on winning the more important games this week — the Ivy League championship series.
“I’m sure our guys can’t wait to get going again,” Ford said. “We always stressed that no what happened in the previous game, it’s the next game we are concerned with. That will be approach and hopefully we will be more determined.”
Archived article by Bryan Pepper
Sun Assistant Sports Editor