GORHAM, Maine—Lucas Ilges (Gloucester, Mass.) scattered three hits over nine innings en route to his first career shutout as UMass Boston (13-16, 5-5 Little East) handed #13 University of Southern Maine (25-5, 7-1 Little East) their first conference loss of the season with a 4-0 win at the USM Baseball Field.
Ilges was dominant the entire way, striking out five and retiring the first 10 batters he faced to hand the Huskies their first shutout of the season and help the Beacons snap a 5-game Little East Conference losing streak. The junior right-hander moved to 3-3 on the year by handing the Huskies just their second loss in their past 21 games.
At the plate, battery mate Todd Ezold (Westfield, Mass.) led the Beacons with two RBI, while Jose Pena (Boston, Mass.) and Matt Consiglio (Southbury, Conn.) each recorded a team-high two hits. Pena and sophomore shortstop Bryan Failla (Torrington, Conn.) each recorded an RBI.
A week after going through six pitchers in a 12-6 home loss to Southern Maine, Ilges and his teammates set the tone early.
The Beacons grabbed their first lead in 16 innings with three hits and a run in the top of the first. Consiglio doubled down the left field line with one out in the top of the first and moved over to third base on a single from Jamill Moquette (Boston, Mass.), before coming in to score on Ezold's RBI single left field.
Ilges proceeded to mow the Huskies down 1-2-3 over the next three innings, including recording a pair of strikeouts against the Little East's top offense.
UMass Boston struck for another run in the top of the third, when they loaded the bases with one out and Pena came in to score on a sacrifice fly off the bat of Ezold.
The Huskies put two runners on with two outs in the fourth inning, but Ilges induced a John Carey fly out, one of his seven fly ball outs on the afternoon.
Southern Maine put two more runners on in the sixth, but Ilges had the Huskies number once again, forcing the LEC's top hitter Nick Grady to groundout.
UMass Boston put the game away in the top of the seventh behind two hits and a costly Huskies error.
With one out and Ryan Manning (Plainville, Mass.) on first, Patrick Murphy (Stamford, Mass.) singled to right field and Manning reached third on a Huskies error. The Beacons capitalized on the error, as Failla put down a perfectly-executed squeeze bunt to score Manning and put Murphy in scoring position with two down. Pena followed with an RBI single to right that scored Murphy and pushed the UMB lead to 4-0.
Ilges took over from there, allowing one hit and one hit by pitch over the final three innings, to earn the Beacons their first Little East Conference win since April 6.
The Beacons will return to action to Thursday when they travel to MIT for a 4 p.m. non-conference game.