By Chris Caron

The good news was that the Pride baseball team was able to hang with the pre-season favorite to win the Colonial Athletic Association and actually took a lead in all three games played during the weekend.The bad news is that the Pride could not muster out a win in the three game set with Virginia Commonwealth University and now stand with a record of 0-3 in CAA.

Despite the losses the Pride head coach Chris Dotolo thought the team played well throughout the weekend. “I have been very pleased with the way that we played in the last few days,” Dotolo said.

The Pride got two good pitching performances from Sophomore David Huth and Freshman Charlie Frago in the first two games of the series. Game one put Huth up against Justin Orenduff, who is a projected first round pick in this year’s Major League Baseball draft. “Not only is he one of the best pitchers in the conference, he is probably one of the best pitchers in the country.” said Head coach of the Pride Chris Dotolo.

The Pride were not phased early on against Orenduff as Junior Josh Stewart drew a walk to lead off the game and proceeded to steal second base and score on an RBI single from Freshman George Athanasopoulous.

Huth would make a rare mistake in the top of the second inning when he gave up a lead off solo home run to VCU third baseman Anthony Granato that tied the game at 1-1.

Both pitchers found a groove until the fourth inning when the Pride got two more runs off Orenduff.

Sophomore Mike Walsh led off the inning with a double and scored on an RBI single from sophomore Ricky Caputo. Steve Oliveri kept the rally going with another single that was misplayed by first baseman Robbie Gragnani bringing Caputo in to score and give the Pride a 3-1 advantage.

VCU added a run in the fifth inning and the Pride got one more in the seventh on a sacrifice fly by sophomore Josh Stern that made the score 4-2.

The high drama would come in the ninth inning after both Huth and Orenduff had been taken out of the game.

Huth would finish the day after 8 innings of work while giving up two runs on five hits. “I thought he pitched well and he did everything that we asked him to do,” Dotolo said of the sophomore. “Hopefully he can keep doing that as we go into conference weekend.”

Senior Terrence Vogenburger came in to close out the game for the Pride with a 4-2 lead, but he experienced plenty of problems with the Rams.

Vogenburger got second baseman Scott Sizemore to fly out but followed with a walk to Granato consequently bringing up the tying run. With Matt Matheson at the plate Granato attempted to steal second base and Oliveri threw the ball into the outfield letting Granato get to third base. Matheson singled to bring in Granato making the score 4-3.

Catcher Jeff Parish and Joe Meador also singled to bring in another run and tie the game at 4-4 when Dotolo took Vogenburger out of the game in place of freshman Jeff Denlea.

The right-handed side-armed pitcher came in with runners on first and second and one out when he got Graniani to fly out. With the game on the line, Denlea faced the number nine hitter Paul Swack, and Swack hit a single to right field to bring in Parrish and give VCU the 5-4 win.

After the two good starting pitching performances neither pitcher was involved in the decision.

Vogenburger (0-1) received the loss for the Pride and Jon Link (3-2) earned the win in relief.

“If you watch baseball long enough you see these types of games and we didn’t do some things well enough in the final couple of innings,” said Dotolo.

After such an intense game the Pride tried to find a way to come back the next day with the same type of enthusiasm.

“A game like that is just mentally exhausting to everyone,” Dotolo said. “I told them that the toughest thing to do is come back from a loss like that,”

Game two of the series featured a freshman match-up on the mound as Frago went against Harold Mozingo for VCU.

The Pride struck first in the top of the fourth by an RBI from Senior Mike Perullo. It got a second run in the inning when Caputo hit into a 6-4-3 double play but in the play Perullo was able to score from third base.VCU answered immediately in the bottom of the inning with two runs of their own to tie things up at 2-2. The Rams took the lead in the fifth inning with a sacrifice fly by Granato and tacked on runs in the sixth and seventh innings, both on sacrifice flies.

In the top of the ninth with the Pride trailing 5-2 sophomore J.P. Wechter hit a lead off single and moved over on a groundout by Walsh. Wechter was brought home by an RBI double from Caputo to make the score 5-3. 

The Pride couldn’t complete the comeback and lost the game by a final of 5-3.

“They have experience winning so they have more of an idea of how to hold onto leads and win games,” Dotolo said of VCU.

The final game of the series put Kellen Taylor on the mound and Taylor could not find a groove thoughout his entire outing.

Taylor wound up giving up eight runs overall, but only three of them earned after errors by freshman Andrew Campagna and Wechter.Ryan Dunn and John Furhman also pitched in the game, but the Pride never translated rallies into runs and lost the game 10-2.

After the series was over the Pride played one game against LIU-Brooklyn on Tuesday. While trailing 4-2 heading into the seventh inning the Pride was able to score five runs in the final three innings to pick up the 7-5 win.

Caputo continued to hit well by picking up two more RBI’s while going 2-5 on the day.

Stern was 3-5 with an RBI as well.

The Pride were rained out on Wednesday against Sienna and now have record 5-13. They will next be in action this weekend at Towson for a three game series.

Staff Writer Peter McCarthy contributed to story.