After being shutout in its season opener Friday, Quinnipiac baseball’s bats woke up in game two of a three-game series against Liberty. Unfortunately for the Bobcats, the Flames were unstoppable, as the hosts put up 16 runs Saturday afternoon.
Graduate student outfielder Noah Rabon got the party started for the Flames in the first inning, ripping a double down the left-field line to bring in the game’s first two runs. Rabon scored later in the inning on a ground out off the bat of junior infielder Cam Foster.
The damage got worse in the second inning. Rabon continued to wreak havoc, slapping another double down the left field line to bring in two more Flames. The two-bagger made it 6-0 in favor of the hosts.
Junior pitcher Garrett Horn was dominant in the first few innings, staying perfect through three, with six of nine outs coming by way of the strikeout.
Liberty added another in the third, but the Bobcat offense woke up in the fourth inning. Graduate student infielder Braydon Seaburg singled up the middle, sending two Bobcats flying around the base paths to score Quinnipiac’s first runs of the season.
Junior pitcher Mason Ulsh was finished after four innings. The Pennsylvania native struck out two batters, while allowing eight earned runs in his first start of the season.
Though the Flames got another in the bottom half, the Bobcats tacked on another in the fifth — as senior infielder Matt DeRosa grounded out to third, but brought home senior outfielder Jared Zimbardo in the process.
With momentum seemingly swinging in Quinnipiac’s direction, Liberty exploded in the fifth and sixth innings. The Flames put together seven runs in those two innings, highlighted by three separate doubles, which drove in five of the seven runs.
Rabon would help the Flames add onto their lead in the eighth. He continued his stellar day, picking up another RBI, his sixth of the game, on a base hit, making it 15-3 Liberty.
The Bobcats made the score more respectable in the ninth. Junior infielder Christopher Willis sent a three-run homer over the wall in right-center to cut the deficit to nine for his first home run as a member of the Quinnipiac program.
Liberty closed it out from there, handing Quinnipiac its second-straight loss and an 0-2 start to the season. These two teams will wrap up their season-opening series with game three tomorrow, with first pitch scheduled for 1 p.m.
