Bronx, N.Y. – (May 1, 2021) – The Fordham baseball team split their Atlantic 10 doubleheader on Saturday afternoon at Houlihan Park, defeating the Massachusetts Minutemen in game one, 5-3, while falling in game two, 8-3.
In game one,
Zach Selinger drove in three runs, while
Matt Mikulski struck out 11 batters, as the Rams picked up a 5-3 victory.
Fordham got on the board right away in the first inning, netting a pair of runs. With two outs and runners at second and third,
Zach Selinger singled through the right side to plate both
Will Findlay and
Alvin Melendez.
The Rams made it 5-0 in the third inning, as Selinger and
Jack Harnisch each registered an RBI-single with the final run coming on a Casey Brow RBI-ground out.
The Minutemen made a game of it in sixth, as they scored three times off Fordham's
Matt Mikulski with one out. After Mikulski's 11
th strikeout,
Ben Kovel came in from the bullpen to record a strikeout for the final out of the inning to keep it a 5-3 game. Kovel then retired the side in the seventh to post his first save of the season, as had had two strikeouts and a walk in 1.1 innings of relief.
Mikulski improved to 7-0 on the year, allowing three runs on four hits with 11 strikeouts over 5.2 innings of work. The 11 strikeouts give him 102 on the season, becoming only the fifth Fordham pitcher to record 100 strikeouts in a season, joining
John Stankiewicz (2019), Cory Riordan (2007), Hank Borowy (1939), and Dick Egan (1909).
At the plate, Selinger was 2-for-3 with three RBI and a run scored, while
Jason Coules,
C.J. Vazquez, and Harnisch also had two hits apiece.
In game two, three early errors put Fordham in a tough spot that they could not climb out of, falling by an 8-3 count.
After scoring on an error in the first, Massachusetts scored five times in the second off two Fordham errors to build up a 6-0 lead.
After it was 7-0 n the fifth, the Rams got on the board with an RBI-single by Vazquez in the bottom of the fifth, while scoring twice in the seventh for the 8-3 final. In the seventh, Coules had an RBI-triple to right center to score Harnisch, with
Alvin Melendez recording an RBI-single to plate Coules.
For Fordham,
Andy Semo was 2-for-2 with a run scored with
Nick Labella having two hits.
The series between the two teams will conclude on Sunday with a single game at noon.
