nick pitts/asst. sports editorThe baseball club did not fair well this past weekend, dropping all three games of their weekend series at home to Hofstra University on April 19 and 20.
The series was the final three home games of the year for the club.
Two of the games were only lost by one run, including a shutout on Sunday, April 20.
The game was an exciting pitchers duel, ending just 1-0.
Sophomore Mike Manzione pitched an excellent game, giving up just one run off of an infield error.
Though he was put down for the loss, Manzione was happy with his performance.
“This was probably the best game I pitched all year,” Manzione said. “There were no earned runs and I didn’t walk too many.”
He gave his defense credit for playing a great game as well.
“Defense was really solid except for that one error which caused the unearned run.”
Manzione struck out four in the game, and his fielders took care of the rest. The reason for the loss was not for the lack of defensive effort, but rather a quiet set of bats.
“We just couldn’t get the bats going when we needed to with runners in scoring position,” junior communication major Matt Warren said. “The kid that shut us out had pretty good stuff. He pitched a great game.”
Senior Anthony Vellutato agreed.
“That pitcher had a really nice slider,” Vellutato said. “It’s something we haven’t seen so far this season. It got us off our toes and onto our heels at bat.”
The club hit themselves into a total of three double plays, which surely didn’t help their cause.
“The double plays killed our momentum,” Warren said.
Sunday’s game was vastly different from the two games played Saturday, where the club played two high scoring games. Game one was lost 8-7, while game two was a loss of 7-4.
Matt Warren was on the hill for the Cavs for all seven innings in game one.
“I thought I pitched pretty well, but they got a couple of key hits off of me.” Warren said.
At the plate, Vellutato had a double, struck out twice and flew out to right.
“I didn’t have the best bat for the weekend,” Vellutato said.
We started off pretty good but couldn’t get hits in clutch situations when we needed to,” Warren said. “We kind of self destructed a little bit.”
Matt Gledhill was on the mound for game two on Saturday, giving up seven runs in five frames before Eric Disantis relieved him.
“Disantis had three strikeouts as soon as he got in,” Vellutato said. He just shut down the other side.”
The final score of game two was 7-4.
“We had a couple of errors,” Vellutato said. We could have turned a couple of double plays but things just didn’t happen there. It was a hard fought game though.”
For several seniors, including Vellutato, Sunday marked their final time playing on their home diamond.
“It was an enjoyable last home series,” Vellutato said. “A couple of our seniors who didn’t get to play much throughout the season got to step in and play a little more. It was good to see them out there.”
When asked if he will miss it, Vellutato responded with just one word, unquestionably.
“I’ve played on other teams, but this team, this was my college career. Of course I’ll miss it, because I’ll never be able to come back to it. There is always alumni games but that’s just not the same.”
“I’ll miss the fans too.”
Perhaps the team’s biggest supporter on Sunday, April 20 was Vellutato’s mother, who cheered until the last out.
The club has two more weekends of baseball to play. This coming weekend they will play the club team at New York University, before ending their season the following weekend with three games at Ryder University.
