AUBURNDALE, Fla. -- Brendan Fox tallied a career-high four hits, including two doubles and a triple, and a career-high four RBIs to lead the Bates baseball team to a 9-6 win over Babson Sunday at the RussMatt Invitational.
Fox '17 (West Hartford, Conn.) has reached base safely in all nine games the Bobcats (4-5) have played in 2016. He is hitting a team-high .516 (16-31) with a team-high 10 RBIs on the young season.
Anthony Telesca '17 (Holtsville, N.Y.) tossed the first complete game of his career to pick up his second win of the season for Bates. He gave up six runs (three earned) on eight hits, walking six and striking out nine along the way.
Down 3-0 entering the top of the fifth, the Bobcats exploded for six runs.
Asher MacDonald '18 (Hillsborough, N.C.) walked to start the frame against Babson starter Teddy Carey (0-1). The Bobcats bunted him to second and John Dinucci'17 (West Hartford, Conn.) doubled him home. Ryan McCarthy '17 (Plaistow, N.H.) singled Dinucci to third and Fox doubled in both runners to tie the game at three.Conor Reenstierna '16 (Lincoln, Mass.) drew a walk and Brendon Canavan '17 (Carlisle, Mass.) followed with a single. An error on the play allowed Fox to score, giving Bates the 4-3 lead. Brett Ender entered the game for Babson and promptly walked Samuel Warren '16 (Norfolk, Va.). Two consecutive passed balls led to two more runs scoring and Bates grabbed a 6-3 advantage.
Babson (2-2) didn't go away, scoring a run in the sixth and a run in the seventh to cut the Bates lead to one. In the bottom of the sixth, Mark Webber doubled and advanced to third on a ground-out. Jack Weiss drove him in with an RBI grounder to make the score 6-4. Then in the seventh inning Owen Shea reached on a dropped third strike to start the frame. He moved to second on a grounder and Telesca proceeded to hit George Crowley with a pitch. Eric Jaun singled home Shea to make it a one-run contest.
Bates picked up three huge insurance runs in the top of the eighth. With one out Joe Dinoto '19 (West Friendship, Md.) singled. Then with two away, McCarthy doubled Dinoto to third. That's when Fox came up huge again with a two-RBI triple to extend the Bates lead to 8-5. A Reenstierna RBI single made the score 9-5 in favor of the Bobcats.
Babson got one run back in the eighth on a Shea RBI double but Telesca shut them down from there to secure the victory.
Babson jumped out to an early 3-0 lead with a run in the second and two runs in the fourth. But the six-run fifth inning put up the Bobcats was enough to give them the lead for good.
In addition to Fox, who went 4-6 at the plate, McCarthy and Dinoto also tallied multi-hit games. McCarthy went 2-3 with a double, two runs scored and a walk. Dinoto was 2-4 with a run scored.
The Bobcats drew eight walks in the game, with first-year Christian Colon (Hamden, Conn.) drawing three of the eight base-on-balls. Bates out-hit Babson 12-8 in the contest but the Bobcats did leave 11 men on base. Babson also left 11 men stranded.
Bates takes on Middlebury Saturday in a doubleheader starting at noon in Northboro, Mass.