 
 
|
April 29, 2007
PRINCESS ANNE, Md. - It was senior day at Hawks Stadium, the final home game for five Hawk seniors. Unfortunately, the University of Maryland Eastern Shore (UMES) was taking on the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference's (MEAC) and Black College Baseball.com's number one team. The Bethune-Cookman University (BC-U) Wildcats topped the Hawks 13-2 in the final game of the series, sweeping the Hawks three games to none and improving their MEAC record to 13-1. The Hawks, honoring Eric Gaines (Oberlin, Ohio/Eastern Michigan University), Kevin Hillenburg (Baltimore, Md./Baltimore City C.C.), Justin Hoban (Selbyville, Del./Delaware Valley Coll.), Dustin Longchamps (Greene, Maine/Central Maine C.C.) and James Walls (Salisbury, Md./Wicomico H.S.), used the senior day momentum to jump out to a 2-0 lead in the first inning. The senior lead-off hitter Gaines appropriately got the inning started with a single up the middle. He then swiped his team leading 12th base of the season almost immediately. After a Walls ground out, Joel Gonzalez (Beltsville, Md./Prince George's C.C.) singled into left off of Wildcat starter Hiram Burgos,. Plating Gaines for the first run of the game. Hoban then reached on a fielder's choice to the shortstop and a throwing error from short made Gonzalez safe at second and advanced him to third. Josh Dean (Dagsboro, Del./Indian River H.S.) then mirrored the previous play, reaching on a fielder's choice to the pitcher Burgos, but his throwing error to second meant Hoban was safe and Gonzalez would score.
The Hawks would hold the 2-0 lead until the fourth inning when BC-U would plate four runs off of Hawk starter Kenny Richardson (Princess Anne, Md./Washington H.S.) Richardson surrendered a walk, three singles and a sacrifice fly to account for the runs. He gave up a lone Wildcat run in the sixth inning as well as a pair of singles, a passed ball and an error would lead to an unearned run. Richardson left the game in the eighth inning with one already across and two on base. Officially he worked seven innings, allowing seven BC-U hits and three walks. He struck out two on the day while seven of the eight runs he allowed were earned. His line wasn't a fair judge of performance as several Hawk miscues, errors and misplays led to long innings for the junior starter. Brian White (Virginia Beach, Va./Tallwood H.S.) and Carl Huber (Mt. Airy, Md./Montgomery C.C.-Germantown) both made an appearance in the eighth inning, combining to allow five more runs, three were charged to White with two unearned while Huber allowed two runs of his own to cross. Huber recorded all three outs in the eighth. With the score 13-2 the game was called at the end of the eighth inning due to the ten run rule.
On the day UMES saw senior Eric Gaines go 2-4 with a run while fellow seniors Justin Hoban was 1-3 and James Walls was 1-4. Kevin Hillenburg went 0-2 but did draw a walk in the game. Gonzalez accounted for the only other Hawk hit, picking up another RBI on his single in the first. The Wildcats again had a sold day at the dish as Patrick Jones led the attack going 3-4 with three RBI and a run. Catcher Drew Clark was 1-3 with a pair or RBI while pinch hitter Dexter Williams got a hit in his lone at bat in the eighth, plating two runs. Angel Mercado and Luis Gonzalez both scored twice for BC-U. Burgos picked up the win, throwing seven innings, allowing two runs, one earned, one walk and striking out four. UMES has now completed their home and MEAC season. They have six games remaining including a trip to the University of Maryland on Wednesday and a two game series at Navy this weekend. They wrap up their year with a three game series at Boston College.
View the Senior Day script here.
|
|||||||||
| ||||||||||
