Teams: Baseball: Schedule & Results

BOWDOIN WINS THREE STRAIGHT OVER TUFTS WITH 4-3 WIN ON SUNDAY

COLLEGE BASEBALL FINAL SCORE
Bowdoin 4    Tufts 3

At Brunswick, ME
Sunday, April 9, 2006

Game Box Score

BRUNSWICK, Me. -- Jared Lemieux's two-out double in the bottom of the seventh inning broke a 3-3 tie and gave the Bowdoin College baseball team a three-game sweep of NESCAC East Division foe Tufts University on Sunday afternoon. The win moves the Polar Bears (13-5, 5-2) into a first-place tie in the Eastern Division, while Tufts drops to 11-7 (3-3 NESCAC).

Bowdoin jumped on the board early, as Ricky Leclerc slapped a double to left field, scoring Lemieux to put the Polar Bears ahead 1-0. The Jumbos evened things up in the third as senior SS Greg Chertok (New City, NY) came home on a Brian Casey (Milford, MA) double to deadlock the game at one apiece.

The Polar Bears added a run in both the fourth and fifth innings, scoring on a Jon Rosenthal RBI single and a Ricky Leclerc groundout to up the lead to 3-1. Tufts bounced back in the top of the seventh inning to score twice and tie the score again. With two outs, back-to-back walks to Steve Ragonese (Upper Saddle River, NJ) and Kyle Backstrom (Worcester, MA) set the stage for a two-run single by Ben Chang (Chicago, IL), chasing Bowdoin starter Ricky Leclerc from the contest. Following a single by Patrick Kennedy (Hurst, TX), reliever Tyler Turgeon got out of the jam with a force-out at second base to end the threat.

In the bottom of the frame, John Lawrie doubled to lead off the inning and Lemieux drove a Zak Smotherman (Westborough, MA) offering into the right-center field gap bouncing at the foot of the wall and scoring Lawrie from second to put Bowdoin ahead for good.

Bowdoin reliever Mark Bulger shut the door for the Polar Bears in the eighth, but a throwing error in the ninth set up the Jumbos with Brian McDonough (Hanover, MA) on second and no outs. Backstrom sacrificed McDonough to third base, but Bulger held strong, getting Ragonese on a short fly to right and Chang to pop-up to short to end the game.

Turgeon picked up the win in relief, while Smotherman took the loss for Tufts. Lemieux and Rosenthal had two hits apiece for Bowdoin, while Jumbo hitters only mustered four hits on the afternoon, as Polar Bear starter Leclerc went 6.2 innings, allowing three runs on three hits with five strikeouts.

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