The St. John’s baseball team took two out of three from Connecticut over the weekend at Jack Kaiser Stadium.
“I thought we played probably our most consistent baseball [of the season],” head coach Ed Blankmeyer said. In all facets of the game, we swung the bats in a timely fashion, defensively we caught the ball relatively well, we made some plays. Pitching, I thought our pitching was really good; we had some lapses but all in all I think we were pretty consistent.”
During the week, senior shortstop Matt Wessinger was selected as the Big East Player of the Week. Wessinger batted a team-best .526 in five games and scored 10 runs, 10 RBIs, slugged .737, had an OBP of .583 and stole three bases without being caught.
Connecticut 8, St. John’s 7
On April 15, the Red Storm (21-15, 8-4) lost the last game of the set in 11 innings, 8-7, as the Huskies avoided the three-game sweep.
The Red Storm rallied from a 7-6 deficit in the ninth to get to extras.
With two outs and runners on the corner, Wessinger reached on an infield hit, driving in senior Kyle Richardson to send the game into extras.
Connecticut’s Tom Verdi led off the 11th with a single and made his way around the diamond on a sacrifice bunt and a sacrifice fly to get to third with two outs. Billy Ferriter then laced an RBI single, which would be enough to put the Johnnies away.
“We were playing from behind, we kept trying to work our way back in and then some guys made some bad pitches and that’s just baseball, you know?” Blankmeyer said.
“They got a two out hit, with two strikes … it’s just about timely hitting with runners in scoring position and they did that and we didn’t.”
St. John’s 8, Connecticut 2
April 14 saw a pitching gem from junior Sean Hagan as the Johnnies won 8-2. Hagan (4-2) threw a complete game, scattering seven hits, two runs,walking none and striking out three. This was Hagan’s first careercomplete game as he retired the final 10 batters of the game for the Huskies.
The Red Storm bats were alive and well during the afternoon, Pat Talbut went 3-for-5 with a run scored and an RBI, Jeremy Baltz was 2-for-4 with an RBI. Wessinger went 0-for-3 but still managed two RBI on the day.
St. John’s 7, Connecticut 2
On April 13, the Red Storm started off their three-game set with the Huskies with a 7-2 win behind starter Matt Carasiti. Carasiti (3-2) threw 6.2 innings of two-run ball, walking three, striking out four and holding the Huskies in check for most of the afternoon.
The Huskies scored the first two runs of the game in the second inning but were blanked the rest of the game. Frank Schwindel went 2-for-4, scored a run and had two RBI while Sean O’Hare was 2-for-3 with an RBI.
Stephen Rivera came on in relief of Carasiti and shut down the Huskiesfor 2.1 innings and struck out five to record his second save of the season. The reliever improved his ERA to 1.74 in 31 innings so far this season.
The Red Storm finish their home stand on April 18 in a non-conferencegame against Princeton before they head on a seven-game road trip with stops at Cincinnati and Notre Dame.
