Teams: Baseball: Schedule & Results

COLLEGE BASEBALL FINAL SCORES
Guilford 5, Tufts 4
Methodist 10, Tufts 2

At Greensboro, NC/Fayetteville, NC
Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Guilford Box Score

Methodist Box Score

David Leresche hit a two-run home run at Guilford

GREENSBORO/FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. -- On the second of back-to-back days playing double-headers with travel in between each game, the Tufts University baseball team lost games at Guilford, 5-4, and at Methodist, 10-2, on Wednesday. The team is now 1-4 on its spring trip.

On Wednesday afternoon, the Jumbos made up their game at Guilford originally scheduled for Monday that was postponed by rain. Alex Starbuck and Joe John hit back-to-back RBI doubles in the seventh inning to rally Guilford to a 5-4 win at McBane Field. The hits erased a 4-3 Quakers' deficit and improved Guilford's overall record to 12-6-1.

Tufts took a 2-0 lead on sophomore SS David Leresche's (St. Louis, MO) two-run homer in the second inning, but Guilford answered in the third inning when Starbuck scored John from first with a triple to the right-field corner and later scored on John Goodwin's sacrifice fly. The Jumbos went ahead with an unearned run in the fourth off of Guilford reliever Alex Pecevich as junior 2B Alex Grzymala (East Setauket, NY) walked, advanced to third on a wild pitch and passed ball, then scored on a ground-out.

Jumbo sophomore starter Chase Rose (Scottsdale, AZ) carried the lead into the seventh inning before the Quakers' rally started. Guilford added an unearned insurance run in the bottom of the eighth inning, which proved important as Tufts rallied to make it a 5-4 game in the ninth on Sam Sager's (Cranston, RI) pinch-hit RBI single. Guilford's Will Henschel retired the final two outs of the game with a runner on second for his first college save.

Rose went 6.1 innings for the Jumbos, allowing six hits and four runs. Tufts managed just five hits in the game and committed three errors. Drew Ward went 3 for 4 with two doubles for the Quakers. John and Starbuck also had two hits. Junior Reid MacLean (1-1) picked up his first win of the season with two scoreless innings of relief.

From Guilford, the team traveled nearly 90 miles to Methodist College for a Wednesday night game. The Methodist Monarchs slowly built up their lead until they blew the game wide open in the seventh to go on to win 10-2.

The Monarchs left two runners on in both the first and second innings before scoring the first runs of the game in the third. Tripp Lancaster led off with a single and Brian Inghram doubled deep in center for Lancaster to score. Inghram scored on a double from Brian Halpin. Methodist put together a two-out rally in the fourth when Shawn Lovette tripled down the right field line. Lancaster had an infield single to score Lovette and Inghram tripled to score Lancaster. The Monarchs added a run in the fifth on a sacrifice fly from Josh Perks. Lovette had a RBI single in the fifth to start the scoring while Inghram had a two-RBI double. Dustin Proctor and Trey Such added RBI for Methodist to extend their lead to 10-0.

The Jumbos had threatened to score in the fourth when sophomore SS Dave Leresche (St. Louis, MO) led off with a double, but was stranded at third. In the seventh, Tufts junior 1B Corey Pontes (Milton, MA) hit a one-out single and moved to third, but was left there. Tufts prevented the shutout in the ninth with a two-run home run from Pontes, but Methodist got out of the inning and finished with the 10-2 win.

Tre Britt pitched seven scoreless innings to earn the win, giving up four hits with six strikeouts. Kurt Kelly and Matt Partin each pitched an inning of relief.

Junior Tom Hill (Robbinsville, NJ) took the loss for Tufts allowing 10 hits in six innings. Sophomore RF Ben Walkley (Trumbull, CT) and Pontes had two hits for the Jumbos.

Tufts plays a double-header at North Carolina Wesleyan College on Thursday.

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