Rider sweeps another MAAC series for 10th straight win
LAWRENCEVILLE >> There isn’t much Jack Winsett hasn’t seen on a baseball field.
The graduate student has been through it all at Rider, so he knew there was no reason to panic even as the team took its lumps against one of the most difficult non-conference schedules in the country.
“We kind of took confidence from that even losing those games,” Winsett said on Sunday after the Broncs completed a threegame sweep of Siena with a 6-1 victory at Sonny Pittaro Field. “Every guy we are seeing now we’ve seen better somewhere. I feel like that’s helped us. We’re putting up a lot of runs, pitching has been good of late, and the whole lineup one to nine puts together good at-bats.”
Rider is stacking wins now, too.
The Broncs (12-14, 9-0) have won 10 in a row — the second longest active streak in the country behind Louisiana’s 15 straight — and have swept all three of their series in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference.
Winsett, catcher Brian Skettini and first baseman Luke Lesch are the three returners who were starters on last season’s MAAC championship team that went on to win a game in the NCAA Regional.
The onus has been on that trio to keep the ship steady through the rocky start.
“Us older guys just had to tell them that there are going to be stretches through the year where we’re going to be hot or cold,” said Winsett, who has played an excellent third base. “We just told them conference play is different. We have to have a different kind of energy. We got to bring it every day.”
The winning streak seemed to be in jeopardy early as Siena (5-23, 3-3) plated a first-inning run against starter Clayton Poliey and had the right-hander on the ropes in each of the first four frames.
Poliey escaped major trouble in the fourth when the Broncs cut a second run down at the plate and ended up gutting out five innings of one-run ball.
After wasting scoring opportunities in the first three innings, Rider finally got the two-out hit that had eluded it when Skettini delivered a tworun single. Two batter later freshman Joe Tiroly lined the first of his two RBI singles for a 3-1 lead.
“We know that we have to be the guys who set the table,” Winsett said. “If we get on, there are guys who bat behind us who are tough outs. If I get on before Brian and Luke, there’s a good chance I’ll score.”
Matt Leahy, another freshman, had a tworun single in the seventh to make it 5-1 and Tiroly tacked on another run with a single in the eighth.
The Broncs have done this largely without the longball. They rank 10th in the MAAC with 14 total home runs, and no player has more than three.
So how have they done it?
“We’ve been consistent defensively and our pitching has been better than average in the league,” 20th-year coach Dr. Barry Davis said. “I think we’ve hit OK, but we haven’t really hit-hit.”
Rider’s 4.22 ERA in conference games ranks second to Fairfield’s 3.97, and its .985 field percentage (.979 overall) is tops in the league.
“Getting beat early like that, we shouldn’t have a problem responding to a loss,” Davis said. We’re not talking about the streak. We’re talking about getting better. We’re not worried about this thing. You can talk about it. It’s good, though, because you want people to be talking about positive things for us.”
Brian Young’s season couldn’t have gotten off to a worse start when he didn’t get out of the first inning in the opener, but the junior left-hander has recovered nicely with wins in each of his last three starts.
Young twirled a careerbest eight innings of onerun ball in his start on Saturday to lower his ERA to 7.48. While that’s still a high number for the preseason All-MAAC selection, you have to consider he got tagged for 20 runs (18 earned) in his first three starts against East Carolina, East Tennessee State and St. John’s.
Davis said Young had been dealing with a hip problem early in the season.
“He’s goes out the first weekend and just pitches about as bad as anyone can pitch and then the next weekend it wasn’t any better,” Davis said. “It was like something is wrong. It’s just taken him this much time to get going.”
Since then he has allowed four runs in his last four appearances — he actually came out of the bullpen for an inning and a third to get his first win against Quinnipiac and then started the next day — culminating with Saturday’s outing in which he scattered nine hits, but struck out seven, and, most importantly, didn’t walk anybody.
The Neptune native has allowed five runs in 20 innings over his last three starts, and has 23 strikeouts against four walks compared to his first three starts when he had six walks and three strikeouts.
Davis said Young felt good on Sunday, one day after throwing 103 pitches.
“That’s a good sign,” Davis said. “He is getting back.”
P.J. Craig, Young and Poliey — that’s the rotation Davis has settled on — all went at least five innings this weekend.
“If those three guys can give us 5-7 innings every time out, we’ll be alright,” Davis said. “I’ve been doing this too long and at some point something is going to happen that is going to test us.”
The Broncs are back in MAAC action next weekend for a three-game set at Marist, but in between face Lehigh in the semifinals of the Liberty Bell Classic on Tuesday and travel to NJIT on Wednesday.
Speaking of the MAAC schedule, Rider does not play either Fairfield or Canisius in the regular season. That’s a curious a decision by the schedule makers considering those have been the three best teams in the league over the last three seasons, with all three making an NCAA Regional appearance.