Washington University baseball split its six games at the UAA Championships over spring break, finishing in a tie for third at the championships.
The Bears took its games against Brandeis University and Case Western Reserve University, split its two contests against Emory University and dropped both games against the University of Rochester. Brandeis and Emory finished atop the tournament at 4-2, Rochester and Wash. U. finished at 3-3, and Case finished 1-5 in tournament play.
“Overall, I think the team played like a very young team in the tournament, especially defensively. Before the last game of the tournament, we were first in ERA, first in batting average, and dead last in fielding percentage. I suppose this was to be expected, since we are a very young team,” said senior captain Dave Working.
Bear tournament play opened at Sanford Memorial Stadium on March 11 against #5 Emory University, and the Bears trailed throughout the game. Junior captain Brian Williams tossed five innings of six run ball, but only two of the runs were earned. Two errors by shortstop Remy Midkiff and a wild pitch by Williams provided the catalyst for a run in the second and three in the fifth, two of them on a homer by clean up hitter Frank Pfister. The Bears mustered five runs (two earned) in the seventh and eight, but the Eagles held on for a 6-5 win. The four run seventh was accomplished by a combination of four hits and an error.
The Bears next contest against the Spartans of Case Western Reserve provided excitement for the 100 fans in attendance. The Bears jumped out to a 1-0 lead after the first innings on three singles by Scott Kennedy, Matt Skinner, and Matt Bayer, and the team extended the lead to 3-0 after three innings after a Kennedy walk, a Skinner double, a Bayer single, and a Working fielder’s choice.
“He’s decided this season that he doesn’t like getting out anymore, and has been consistently hammering the ball,” said Working on Kennedy’s play.
The Spartans fought back in the sixth and seventh with a two run homer by Chad Mullins in the sixth and a Clay Hurley single, stolen base, and eventual scoring on a sacrifice fly.
Case took a 6-5 lead in the ninth with three runs (1 earned), only to see the Bears rally back with a two out, five run rally. After a bases loaded walk scored Bayer, outfielder and captain Zander Lehman ended the game with a walk-off grand slam to right field.
“I didn’t exhale until the ball cleared the wall. It’s easy to forget that we headed into the top of the 9th with a two-run lead on Case and let them come back and take the lead. It’s a good thing we ended up winning, because the alternative would have been mentally devastating,” said Working.
After 2-0 loss to the University of Rochester, the Bears and Eagles battled again to a Wash U 8-7 win. After WU scored five in the fifth, the Eagles answered with five in the sixth before a Bayer homer in the seventh put the Bears ahead for the remainder of the game.
The Bears then defeated Brandeis 10-4 behind an Adam Webb complete game before losing 20-4 to Rochester in the UAA finale.
“We made about 9 errors on the last day and our pitchers working on extremely short rest couldn’t recover with all the extra outs,” stated Lehman.
The Bears next play Webster University on Thursday before a doubleheader Friday against Benedictine and a weekend contest against Illinois Wesleyan. UAA play will continue April 26 and 27 with two games against Case Western and the University of Chicago, all at Case Western.