After the third out in the top of the ninth inning last night, a George Mason bus pulled into the access road that leads to Byrd Stadium. It idled as the Patriots nursed a tenuous 7-6 lead over the Terrapins baseball team, ready to take the visitors home after more than three hours of waiting.
Given the night’s events to that point, the bus’ sudden appearance seemed premature, if not misguided. The Terps could have sent the game to extra innings with a single run, or they could have sent their visitors back to Virginia with a walk-off result.
In the end, though, after second baseman Kyle Convissar bounced out to first base with the bases loaded, after the Terps fell for only the third time in nonconference play this season, George Mason’s team filed past a group of silent Terps as it made its way to the bus home.
“It was tough,” shortstop Alfredo Rodriguez said. “Anytime you don’t come out on the right side of the win column or the loss column, it’s tough. We battled throughout the game. We just made too many mistakes and it caught up with us.”
The game hinged on three Terps (18-12) errors ultimately responsible for five unearned Patriots runs. Three of those runs came with two outs in the eighth inning off reliever Charlie Haslup, who, after striking out the frame’s first two George Mason batters with a 6-4 lead, walked the next two on full counts.
Next up for George Mason (19-11) was left fielder Duncan Satherlie, who lined a ball to the gap in right-center field. Right fielder Jordan Hagel closed in on the ball and tried a sliding catch, but the ball deflected off his glove to center field. Both runners scored, and the Patriots would add another off Haslup (2-2) to post the 7-6 final.
“There were a lot of different parts to that game you can replay and think back to, so I don’t think you can pin it to one thing,” coach Erik Bakich said. “Generally, our strengths have been pitching and defense, and we just didn’t do a good enough job in those two areas tonight.”
Friday starter Brady Kirkpatrick got the nod on the mound last night after a series of recent subpar outings for the Terps. Entering the game, the right-hander had posted a 10.53 ERA over 13.1 innings in ACC play, and his last two starts went one inning and 2.1 innings, respectively, in length.
“It was the same thing we did with [David Carroll against George Washington on March 20],” Bakich said. “Anytime a starter has a real short outing, we try to get them right back on the horse.”
Kirkpatrick’s output in a no-decision was decidedly mixed. He went four innings and gave up two runs (no earned) on three hits. He struck out four batters but walked five, giving him a combined 15 strikeouts to 16 free passes in his past five starts.
“Brady’s a great pitcher and baseball’s a game of confidence,” Bakich said. “Sometimes, that can play both ways. In sports, when your confidence gets shook a little, it can affect you, and when your confidence is high, it can have a tremendous positive impact. We just, as a team, have to get back to that confident state of mind and play that way.”
The game itself was a back-and-forth affair with six lead changes and three ties. The Terps seemed to capture the momentum for good multiple times – just never long enough. The most notable swing came in the fifth inning, when the Terps turned a 3-2 deficit into a 4-3 lead on back-to-back home runs from first baseman Tim Kiene and left fielder Michael Montville.
Their next time up, however, the Patriots came right back to tie the game on an error by Rodriguez.
“It’s a momentum swing, always,” Rodriguez said. “If we’re the offense and we scored, we want to come right back out there and shut them down, and we weren’t able to do that today and I think that kept them in the game. You’ve got to tip your hat to them. They took advantage of the mistakes we made, but it was frustrating.”
The Terps continue their 10-game home stand tonight with a matchup against Bucknell (14-14), but if Bakich could schedule it any differently, he would.
Instead of sitting in his office as the George Mason bus headed back to the Capital Beltway, the two teams would be back out on Shipley Field.
Said Bakich: “I wish we were playing a doubleheader right now.”
dgallen@umdbk.com
