CUA Baseball Routs St. Mary’s, 25-7

By Jimmy Cassidy

It was a day that all offensive slumps came to an end for the baseball team at Catholic University in a win over St. Mary’s College of Maryland.

The Cardinals defeated the St. Mary’s Seahawks back on Sunday, March 13th in a tight 8-7 victory. In their recent meeting on Tuesday, March 26th, CUA again gave up 7 runs to their opponent. This time, though, the Cards were not interested in a close game, so they put up more runs than they had scored in their previous 4 games combined. The 25-7 score showing on the scoreboard at Robert J. Talbot field at the end of the game was not an error by the workers in the press box, but the result of an offensive explosion by the home team.

The big win comes at an important time for Catholic in the latter stages of the season. The team now has a 17-19 overall record, and 7-11 in the Landmark Conference, but has work to do for a chance to make the conference playoffs.

The Cardinals will need to sweep in their upcoming three game series in the upcoming weekend, and needs Drew University to win at least two games in their weekend series to allow CUA to sneak into the playoff picture.

CUA was in the midst of another back and forth affair with the Seahawks a few innings into the game, and was actually losing 4-3 after St. Mary’s at bat in the 4th inning. Catholic responded in the bottom of the 4th by having their first six batters all reach base. The sixth batter was senior John Palladino, and he hit a high fly ball that left the yard for a three run home-run to right field. The Cardinals went on to score seven runs in the inning, but they were not finished with scoring. CUA then sent 18 batters to the plate in the 5th inning, batting around twice, and many fans of St. Mary’s were hoping that the mercy rule could be applied to a college baseball game. It wasn’t, and Catholic scored 12 runs on 11 hits. A 3 run homer from Mark Duffy in the 8th extended CUA’s lead from 22-7 to 25-7 to really put the game out of reach. Josh Martin closed the game out to win by that score in a game that won’t be forgotten soon.

Come support Catholic in their important weekend series on Saturday, April 30th and Sunday, May 1st! The Cardinals take on the Juniata College Eagles at home for a chance to win the conference.