Men’s Baseball Splits Double with Carleton

SportsDavid Kaufmann — Published September 21, 2010

Game One
Carleton 5
Concordia 4

Concordia’s men’s baseball team endured some growing pains last Sunday as they split their doubleheader against the Carleton Ravens with a 5-4 loss and a 10-9 win on the opponents’ turf in Ottawa.

“We didn’t play as well as we were capable of playing. I don’t think we played to our potential, and I don’t think it was anything other than the fact that we’re just getting to [know] each other,” said Stingers head coach Howard Schwartz.

The first game got off to a promising start for the Stingers, as second baseman Jason Katz hit a triple at the top of the first. Centre fielder Kevin Shelton then opened the scoring when he scored the first RBI of the game. The Stingers would add to their tally as pitcher Mark Nadler and outfielder Richard Leibovitch added singles to take a commanding 4-0 lead.

But come the second inning, the Stingers would run into a roadblock with Ravens pitcher Josh Schacnaw. It began with his perfect inning, it continued with the opposition’s defence and the inning ended with the Stingers leaving some of their men on base.

“We had 12 hits in the first game, [so] we should have scored more runs. We ended up leaving runners on base almost every inning,” said Schwartz.
Meanwhile, come the bottom of the fourth, the Ravens started cashing in on the Stingers’ errors.

The end began after Stingers pitcher Marc-André Fleury allowed a couple of runs. The Ravens got a couple more the following inning after they caught the Stingers daydreaming and stole some bases. This prompted a Stingers pitching change from Fleury to Pierre-Marc Lebel.

The Ravens completed the comeback when player/coach Ben Rich stole home plate, which rounded out the 5-4 score in favour of the Ravens.

“The guys definitely showed some character by not giving up, shutting Concordia down with some solid pitching [on] defence, picking each other up thereafter and doing what we had to do to push runs across,” said Rich.

“It was really good that we had a good comeback like this. We didn’t get our heads out of the game early on. We stayed in it, and that’s why we were able to make the comeback.”

Game Two
Concordia 10
Carleton 9

In the second game the Stingers regrouped and managed to hold off a late Ravens rally in the bottom of the seventh.

“We battled. It was two good games. We definitely had an opportunity to win both, but at the end of the day we fought hard,” said Stingers third base coach Dan Nathan.

Carleton opened up with three runs, but Nadler and Stingers rookie Anthony De Cardhillo answered back with a couple of home runs to take a 6-3 lead by the top of the fourth.

However, by the bottom of that inning, the Ravens had cut Concordia’s lead to 6-5. They eventually caught up in the bottom of the sixth, but the Stingers stormed back with four runs in the final two innings.

In the bottom of the seventh, it seemed as the Stingers had the game put away after the Ravens got two quick outs, but it seemed as though Stingers closer Nadler had run out of gas, allowing three runs. Just before the game could go into extra innings, the Stingers’ defence held the fort and got the final out.

Although the Stingers split the series, Schwartz believes his team has a lot of work to do before they can come up with another national championship.

“It’s going to take a while for us to find ourselves, and find out what the combinations are and how to put things together,” he said.

The Stingers will open a five-game homestand, starting Sept. 22 at Trudeau Park against McGill. Game time is at 8:00 p.m.

This article originally appeared in Volume 31, Issue 06, published September 21, 2010.