Beavers Finish with 24 Hits, Record For Largest Margin of Victory in Lopsided Win
BABSON PARK, Mass.—Six players drove in at least two runs and Babson College recorded the largest margin of victory in school history with a 26-1 win over visiting WPI in New England Women's and Men's Athletic Conference (NEWMAC) baseball action on Thursday afternoon at Govoni Field.
Ten players had at least two hits as Babson won its sixth consecutive game to improve to 13-7 overall and 4-2 in league play. WPI, which entered the day having won three straight games, drops to 10-11 overall and 2-4 in the NEWMAC.
Senior Ryan Arena (Yorktown Heights, N.Y.) homered and drove in five runs, while juniors Eric Jaun (Loveland, Ohio) and Brian McHale (Ramsey, N.J.) both had three hits and drove in three runs for the Beavers. Junior Edward Lehr(Byram Township, N.J.), classmate Jake Oliger (Newtown, Conn.) and sophomore Matthew Valente (Wyckoff, N.J.) all finished with two hits and two runs batted in on the afternoon.
Senior Mark Webber (Norwell, Mass.) and junior Connor Gill (Sterling, Mass.) combined for five hits and six runs scored, and first-year Peter Feinman (Virginia Beach, Va.) came off the bench to go 2-for-2 with his first career home run in the victory. Junior Michael Genaro (Greenwich, Conn.) scattered eight hits and struck out seven over six innings to earn the win and improve to 4-1 on the year.
Sophomore Tyrone Patterson (Upper Marlboro, Md.) had four hits, including a solo home run in the top of the ninth, and senior Evan Lacroix (Methuen, Mass.) added three hits to lead the Engineers. Classmate Steven D'Agastino (Worcester, Mass.) shouldered the loss after giving up six runs on five hits over the first two innings to fall to 3-3 on the season.
Leading 1-0 after one, the Green and White scored five times in the second inning. Arena drove in a pair of runs with a chopper through the left side and Webber and Jaun followed with RBI singles to make it 6-0.
Genaro worked out of a bases loaded jam in the top of the third and the Beavers offense exploded for nine runs in the bottom of the frame.
Arena followed singles by Gill and senior David Lennon (Windermere, Fla.) with a three-run homer to right center to push the margin to 9-0, while Valente added an RBI single and Jaun came through with an RBI double for an 11-run lead.
Gill reached on an error in his second at-bat of the frame to keep the inning alive, and the Beavers tacked on four more runs, which included a two-run single by McHale and a double down the left field line by Lennon to push their advantage to 15-0.
Jaun, Oliger and McHale drove in runs as part of a three-run fourth, and Valente and Oliger each had an RBI in Babson's four-run fifth inning to extend the lead to 22-0. The Green and White added three more runs in the last of the sixth, two which came in on a single to left by Lehr.
Both teams return to action on Friday at 3:30 p.m. as Babson hosts Wheaton to begin a three-game series, while WPI takes on Clark in the first of a three-game set.
GAME NOTES
• The Beavers are 48-24 all-time against WPI and swept the regular season series with the Engineers for the first time since 2015.
• Prior to Thursday, Babson had not scored 20 runs since a 20-8 seven-inning victory over Eastern Nazerene back on March 15, 2008.
• Thursday's 25-run victory surpassed Babson's previous record 23 runs, which came in a 30-7 win over Coast Guard on April 1, 2000.
• The Beavers, who scored 19 times against Coast Guard in the second game of Saturday's doubleheader, set a new school mark for the most runs in a two-game stretch with 45.
• Since allowing eight runs to Clark in both games of a doubleheader back on March 24, the Green and White has given up a total of just seven runs in its last four NEWMAC outings.