Box Score VESTAL, New York – The Marist baseball team fell to the Binghamton Bearcats by a final score of 3-1 on Tuesday afternoon. With the loss, the Red Foxes drop to 17-15 (7-5 Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference), while the Bearcats improve to 17-7 (6-0 America East).
Freshman Patrick Lightner finished the day with a hit and one RBI, while sophomore Randy Taveras picked up a hit and a run scored on the day. Redshirt senior Matt Pagano finished with two hits, redshirt freshman Tyler Kapuscinski picked up a hit to extend his hitting streak to a career and team high 11 games and junior Andrew Rouse and redshirt junior Greg Kocinski each finished with a hit, extending Kocinski's hitting streak to six games.
On the mound, freshman Austin Phillips picked up the loss, throwing three innings while giving up just one run (none earned) on four hits with three strikeouts. Junior Spencer Bunting pitching one and two thirds innings and gave up two runs (none earned) on two hits, freshman Skyler Pichardo made his second career appearance, throwing one third of an inning and gave up no runs on one hit with one strikeout. Senior John Parisi pitched one inning and gave up no runs on no hits with a walk and one strikeout and senior Ryan Thomas threw two innings and gave up no runs on two hits with a walk and two strikeouts. Thomas' appearance was his 11th of the season and 85th of his career, bringing him within one appearance of tying the program's all-time record of 86 career appearances.
The Bearcats opened the scoring in the bottom of the first inning when Paul Rufo and Brendan Skidmore reached base back-to-back on hit by pitches. Jason Agresti followed with a single to load the bases and Luke Tevlin reached on a fielding error by the third baseman that allowed Rufo to score and give Binghamton the 1-0 lead.
In the bottom of the fifth, Tevlin reached on a throwing error by the pitcher and advanced to third. Matt Tsukroff followed with an RBI double that scored Tevlin, Pichardo replaced Bunting on the mound and Anthony Meduri followed with another RBI double, scoring Tsukroff and the Bearcats were ahead 3-0.
The Red Foxes trimmed the deficit in the top of the seventh when Taveras led off reaching on a hit by pitch and stole second during the next at bat. Two batters later, junior Matt Iantosca pinch hit and walked to set up men on first and third and Lightner followed with an RBI single up the middle, scoring Taveras.
That was as close as Marist would get however, as they went down 1-2-3 in the top of the ninth and Binghamton came away with the 3-1 win.
Up next, the Red Foxes return to McCann Field for a non-conference doubleheader against the Albany Great Danes on Saturday at 12 PM.
