Both Rutgers baseball and softball teams hosted Big Ten foes for a three game series this past weekend. It was the league opening series for baseball who hosted Michigan State. Coming off a three game sweep of Illinois the week before, softball hosted Purdue. Each program lost the first two games of its respective series before winning the third game on Sunday.
Rutgers Baseball lost Friday’s opener 3-2 as its comeback bid fell just short. On Saturday, RU led 3-2 after four innings. However, the Spartans scored eight unanswered runs to win 10-4. However, Sunday saw the Scarlet Knights break through with an important 10-5 victory.
Tied 2-2, Rutgers delivered two runs in the sixth to take the lead. Josh Kuroda-Grauer and Evan Sleight hit back to back runs on just three pitches combined. Trevor Cohen produced an RBI single in the seventh before Sleight went yard for the second time in the game. This time it was a 3 run bomb to give RU a commanding 8-2 lead. Ryan Lasko’s two run single in the 8th inning gave the Scarlet Knights an extra cushion. Reliever Ben Gorski earned his first win of the season after throwing 2 2/3 scoreless innings.
Steve Owens’ team is now 14-13 overall and 1-2 in Big Ten play. RU hosts Hofstra on Tuesday before visiting defending league champions Maryland for a three game series this coming weekend.
Rutgers softball dropped two close games against Purdue to start the series. The Scarlet Knights lost 3-2 on Friday and then 6-3 in extra innings on Saturday. However, RU produced a dominant 9-0 victory on Sunday. Jaden Vickers had a complete game shutout along with eight strikeouts. She improved to 8-4 on the mound this season. In addition, Katie Wingert slugged a home run and double for three RBI’s. Maddie Lawson was also 2 of 2 from the plate, scoring twice and driving in two runs. Kayla Bock doubled in two runs while Ryann Orange also had an RBI double.
Kristen Butler’s squad is now 27-12 overall and 4-2 in Big Ten play. Next up RU will host a midweek doubleheader against Maryland on Wednesday. Rutgers will then travel to Ohio State for a three game series this coming weekend.
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pj43
April 3, 2023 at 7:52 pm
We’re now into April and a 14-13 record on the men’s baseball side isn’t encouraging. By my count, 6 of the losses were by 1 run and 3 games were lost by 2 runs. I guess you could say, “that’s baseball”. Whatever, I hope that, as the season progresses, the team will begin to be on the winning side of those close games. Maryland this coming weekend would be a nice place to start!