It was a tale of two completely different baseball games in the Ithaca College-Utica College doubleheader today at Freeman Field.

Utica won the first contest 2–0 as the Bombers bats were non-existent and Ithaca annihilated the Pioneers in the second game 9–3 with the Blue and Gold’s hitters more than alive and well. The Bombers are now 7–11 on the season and 4–2 in the conference.

“We seem to not be aggressive in the first game,” Head Coach George Valesente said. “We seemed to be sort of passive at the plate. We took a lot of pitches early and then what was happening was the velocity [of the opposing pitcher] was down and we were getting out front. We were lunging for balls and just hitting lazy fly balls and we hit ourselves into two double plays. I’m going to give the pitcher credit. He did a good job. … The second game we come out and right away we’re attacking good fast balls to hit [and] hitting line drives all over the place.”


Coming into today’s games, Utica’s pitching staff was struggling immensely, as eight of their hurlers sported ERAs over 7.00. Two of those pitchers were the ones the Pioneers started against the Bombers.

Against Utica pitcher Andrew Dexter, who had an ERA over 10.00, the Blue and Gold only managed two hits, never had a runner on third base and only managed a runner on second base twice.

The closest Ithaca came to scoring a run was in the in the bottom of the fourth inning. With two outs, senior outfielder T.J. Abone was on second and steady hitter junior third baseman David Ahonen at the plate. Ahonen ended up flying out to centerfield.

The Bombers alluded their struggles to a lack of concentration at the plate. Ahonen even reverted to the big 10–3 win the Bombers had at SUNY-Oneonta on Tuesday. Before the game, several Bombers were engaging in boisterous hand-shakes and chest bumping.

“We came out in a little bit of a lull,” Ahonen said. “We had a big win this week against Oneonta. We came in a little bit too cocky I think, a little bit over zealous and we weren’t focused early on.”

Junior pitcher Aaron Sapp went the whole game, allowing only one unearned run, striking out four and walking just one.

Sapp threw around 115 pitches, but Valesente said he does not regret leaving him in. He said the couple of runs scored by Utica were because of a poor job by his defense with committing a couple of errors and a swinging bunt that went off of Sapp’s foot.

“I didn’t think he was tired and I didn’t think it was a matter of him not being able to get the job done as much as us not being able to make a couple of plays,” he said.

It probably wouldn’t have made a difference who was pitching for the Bombers. Dexter was in too much control with his low velocity, junk-like pitches and the Blue and Gold not having enough urgency at the plate. Dexter finished the day throwing around 80 pitches.

The loss to Utica left the Bombers angry. The team yelled motivational comments from the dugout before the start of the second contest. Whatever was going on, it worked.

“We didn’t really need to say anything super motivational,” senior catcher Mike Armstrong said. “Everyone knew we should’ve won the game and we didn’t play our best game. The few things that were said was everyone was a bit embarrassed. …We knew we should’ve beaten that team. We’re a better team. And the main thing is everyone just wanted to put that one in the past, forget about it [and] go get them this game right away, right off the bat.”

Right away, the Blue and Gold got to Utica pitcher Robert Amor, scoring five runs in the first, three in the second and managing to bat around the lineup in both innings. Ithaca added another run in the fifth after Amor was pulled.

The Bombers play Utica once again at 1 p.m. tomorrow in a doubleheader.

“We expected to sweep this weekend,” Ahonen said. “Losing one is a little sour to taste, so we’re going to come out and win both tomorrow and be 3–1 and stay ahead of the Empire 8.”