Genaro Strikes Out Career-High 10, Arena Blasts 22nd Career Home Run
KEENE, N.H.—Five different players drove in at least two runs and junior Michael Genaro (Greenwich, Conn.) finished with a career-high 10 strikeouts over seven innings as visiting Babson College defeated Keene State College, 16-1, in non-conference baseball action on Sunday afternoon at the Owl Athletic Complex.
Winners of four straight, Babson improves to 25-10 overall, while Keene State slips to 13-14 with its third straight loss.
Senior Ryan Arena (Yorktown Heights, N.Y.) was 3-for-3 with a double, a homer and three RBI, and the trio of junior Nicholas Browne (Mount Laurel, N.J.) and sophomores Matthew Valente (Wyckoff, N.J.) and Jake Oliger (Newtown, Conn.) all had two hits and drove in two runs apiece for the Beavers. Fellow sophomore Aidan Scott (South Glastonbury, Conn.) reached base three times and added two RBI in support of Genaro, who gave up just one run on seven hits to improve to 7-1 on the year.
First-year Tyler Gammie (Newington, Conn.) was 2-for-3 with a double to lead the Owls. Senior Steven Zadravec (Fairfield, Conn.) started and suffered the loss to fall to 1-2 after giving up eight runs, seven of them earned, on nine hits and three walks in 3.1 innings.
Arena, Valente and Oliger all drove in runs in the first and Arena cranked a two-run homer in the second to give Babson an early 5-0 lead. Scott contributed an RBI single in the third, Valente drove in Arena to start the fourth, and Browne followed with a two-run blast to right later in the frame to extend the margin to 9-0.
Keene State got on the board in the last of the seventh thanks to an RBI single by sophomore Ryan Linehan (Bedford, N.H.), but the Beavers responded by sending 13 men to the plate and scoring seven times despite just two hits in the ninth. The inning included three hit batsmen, three walks, two errors and back-to-back two-out RBI singles by Browne and Oliger.
Babson senior Teddy Carey (Upton, Mass.) came on in relief of Genaro in the eighth and struck out two while allowing just one hit in two shutout innings of relief.
The Beavers are back in action on Tuesday when they host Wentworth at 3:30 p.m., while Keene State takes on Plymouth State on Monday at 3:30 p.m.
GAME NOTES
• The Beavers are now 7-7 all-time against Keene State and have won their last four against the Owls going back to 2013.
• Arena's second-inning homer was the 22nd of his career, tying him with Chris Kucher '13 for second on the program's all-time list.
• Genaro, who is now tied for third in school history with 16 career victories, is the just the fifth Babson pitcher to win seven games in a season. He also is now just one shy of the program's single-season record of eight, which was set by Sam Kilpatrick '97 in 1996 and matched by Andrew Aizenstadt '11 in 2009.
• The Beavers' 83 doubles in 35 games this spring matches last year's total achieved in 44 contests, and is just one shy of the school record of 84 set back in 1998.