The Baruch baseball team had a memorable 2019 season by playing in their first NCAA Tournament and earning valuable postseason experience.

They will look in 2020 to build on that success and they started in winning fashion on Friday afternoon with a 13-6 win against Rutgers-Newark at Weequahic Park in Newark, New Jersey.

The Bearcats scored six runs in the top of the second on three hits and three errors to jump out to a 7-0 lead after two innings. They led 9-2 heading into the bottom of the third with six different players recording at least one RBI in the road win.

The Scarlet Raiders got as close as 9-5 after three innings, but solid relief pitching from Robert Raman, Hasan Deljanin and Nicholas D'Angelo limited their batters to just one run in the final five innings to help seal the season-opening victory.

Paul Sirakowski (2IP, 3H, 2ER, 2K) earned the win.

Theodore Avgerinos did the most damage at the plate batting 3-for-5 with four runs scored.  

Eric Diaz and Robert Schmuck had solid Bearcat debuts with 2 RBI and 2 hits each.

Liam O'Gara smacked a triple and was walked twice.

Rutgers-Newark from the NJAC committed five errors in the home loss. Connor Clare led their team batting 3-for-4 with a homer, triple, four RBI and two runs scored.