NEW HAVEN, Conn. – The Yale baseball team's bats appear ready for the start of Ivy League play this weekend. The Bulldogs had their best offensive day of the season Tuesday afternoon at George H.W. Bush '48 Field, blasting Quinnipiac 19-7 in the final game before Ivy play starts Saturday with a doubleheader at Princeton. Rightfielder
Ben Metzner led the onslaught with six RBIs and a pair of hits. Second baseman
Jeff Pierantoni and third baseman
Carson Swank homered and shortstop
Mason LaPlante had four hits. Centerfielder
Alec Atkinson had a pair of hits and scored four runs.
Yale (8-6, 0-0 Ivy League) jumped on Quinnipiac starter Matt DeLuca in the bottom of the first, scoring twice off three hits and three steals. Atkinson's sac fly started the scoring, and pitcher/designated hitter
Jimmy Chatfield helped his own cause with an RBI single.
Quinnipiac (4-12, 0-0 MAAC) broke through for a run against Chatfield in the top of the third, but the bottom of that inning saw Yale start to pull away. After another RBI single by Chatfield, Metzner singled in a pair to get the lead to 5-1. Swank then pulled a three-run homerun down the leftfield line to get it to 8-1.
Chatfield gave way on the mound to righthander
Carter Kessinger in the fourth, staying in the game as designated hitter. He would go 2-for-3 with two runs and two RBIs. The Bobcats scored in the top of that inning, but Yale answered with a pair of runs in the bottom as catcher
Jake Gehri hit a sac fly and Swank drove in a run with a two-out single.
Yale kept pulling away in the fifth, with RBI singles by LaPlante and Atkinson, an RBI groundout by Metzner and an RBI single by Gehri in response to the Bobcats' solo run in the top of the inning.
The Bobcats scored a lone run again in the top of the sixth, and Yale once again had an emphatic response. LaPlante's single drove in second baseman
Jeff Pierantoni, then a bases-loaded double by Metzner got the lead to 18-4.
Quinnipiac scored another run in the top of the seventh, but Pierantoni countered that with his first career home run. The Bobcats also scored in the top of the eighth, then finally held the Bulldogs scoreless in the bottom of that inning. Yale finished with 17 hits, including a pair of doubles and a pair of homeruns. The Bulldogs also stole 10 bases.
After Chatfield the Bulldogs got a pair of innings each from Kessinger, lefthander
Reid Easterly and righthander
Mick Kelley.
First pitch for game one at Princeton Saturday is 11:30 a.m.
