Sitting at 0-7 after their first two weekends of play, Marist baseball journeyed to Greensboro, NC this weekend for a three-game set with the NC A&T State University Aggies. The Red Fox offense burst to life in the latter two games of the weekend to earn them their first two wins and first series victory of the season for some much-needed momentum before MAAC Conference play opens next weekend.
In game one, the Red Foxes concocted yet another uninspiring performance featuring an ice-cold offense and unreliable pitching, a stark reminder of why the Red Foxes were winless to open the season. But, in large part thanks to a plethora of offense from some unpredictable sources, Marist looked like a different team in games two and three.
The Aggies entered the series 2-4 after having played some tough competition. Three of their four losses had come against top 10 teams, Clemson and North Carolina, while the other came against VCU.
The Red Foxes struggled in all aspects of game one; on the offensive side they recorded just two hits while the pitching staff limped along and surrendered eight runs on 11 hits. The Aggies’ starter, senior right-hander Angel Ortiz, twirled a gem in which he allowed two hits and no earned runs over seven innings of work.
Marist’s lone run was unearned and came in the first inning on an RBI single by graduate student outfielder Jason Claiborn. The hit scored sophomore outfielder Lewis Rodriguez who reached base on a throwing error by NC A&T freshman shortstop Caleb Beals.
Senior infielder/outfielder Nathan Lincoln served as the designated hitter in the game and picked up Marist’s second hit in the second inning, a single to center field. Lincoln’s knock proved to be the final hit of the day for the Red Foxes.
Meanwhile, redshirt sophomore Marist starter Ty Hartley was solid over the first four innings of his third consecutive game one start to open the season. Through those four innings, Hartley allowed just one run on three hits. But in the fifth, the game began to slip away from him.
The first three men reached to begin the inning thanks to two walks surrounding a throwing error by Hartley. He then issued a wild pitch to score the first run of the inning and give the Aggies a 2-1 lead. After picking up a strikeout for the first out, Hartley uncorked another run-scoring wild pitch to make it 3-1 and allowed two run-scoring singles to senior infielder AJ Jones and senior catcher Kristian Amaro, respectively. By the time the inning ended, NC A&T had a 5-1 advantage.
Hartley’s outing closely resembled his start against William & Mary last weekend. In that outing, he was terrific for the first five innings before cracking and surrendering three runs in the sixth. This time, he was solid through four innings before the fifth inning flipped his outing upside down.
The Aggies added three more runs over the waning innings against freshman right-hander Logan Scholl, solidifying an 8-1 victory while Ortiz and their bullpen stymied the Red Fox bats.
After game one, Marist found themselves sitting at 0-8 on the season. While their pitching had struggled, their offense had perhaps turned into even more of a problem. This two-hit shutout seemed like it could be rock-bottom; and perhaps it was.
In game two, the Red Foxes managed to flip the script. They broke out offensively to the tune of 15 hits and 13 runs, led in large part by junior infielder Brady Steinert and sophomore catcher Scott Esposito. On the other side, redshirt sophomore left-hander Will Taylor, who may be emerging as the ace of the Marist staff, provided a fantastic performance on the hill.
The only blemishes against Taylor came in the form of first-inning RBIs for redshirt sophomore Jason Campo and Amaro, giving the Aggies a 2-0 lead. Taylor then cruised through the next six innings to deliver the best start by a Marist pitcher this season, finishing after seven innings in which he allowed six hits, two runs, one walk and struck out five. Through three starts, Taylor’s ERA sits at a pretty 2.87.
Esposito began Marist’s offensive breakout in the second with an RBI double, his first run driven in of the season. The knock was one of three in a 3-for-5 performance from Esposito and the first of two RBIs.
Steinert found himself in the lineup for just the third time this season and managed to one-up Esposito with a 4-for-5 performance and three RBIs. He hit two doubles and provided a much-needed spark to the Red Fox lineup.
Other top performers in the game included freshman infielder Luke Monico and junior infielder AJ Brotz, who each had two hits and one RBI. Rodriguez drove in two runs and Claiborn reached base four times while eight of the nine players in the lineup picked up at least one hit, culminating in a 13-run offensive outburst.
After Taylor departed heading into the eighth inning, junior right-hander Caleb Kempler came on to finish the game. Kempler gave up three hits, including a solo-homer to Jones, but also struck out three to conclude a tidy 13-3 Red Fox victory, their first of the season.
Sunday’s rubber game proved to be a 10-inning barn burner that lasted over four hours. Heading into the game, Marist prepared to work through a bullpen game; graduate student Riley Orr had been the Red Fox’s third starter throughout the first two weeks of the season, but in those two starts, he gave up a total of 10 hits and nine earned runs over just four innings. Instead of Orr, Head Coach Lance Ratchford turned to redshirt sophomore right-hander Bobby LeFevre; LeFevre was the first of six Marist pitchers to take the mound in the game.
After Claiborn shot Marist in front with an RBI single in the first, LeFevre failed to record an out in the bottom of the inning. He exited after facing just four batters, two of which recorded hits and two of which he hit with a pitch. All four runners came around to score, giving NC A&T a 4-1 lead heading into the second.
Donahue, Brotz and Steinert combined to drive in three runs over the second and third innings to knot the game at four before Aggies’ junior outfielder Andrew Tinsley brought home two runs with a single in the third.
Marist then turned the game around in the fourth with a seven-run outburst fueled by a two-run double from the suddenly red-hot Steinert. Lincoln also had a two-run hit in the inning while some shoddy NC A&T defense assisted the Red Foxes to an 11-6 lead; Marist did not score again until extra innings.
The Aggies clawed their way back into the game in the sixth and eighth innings against the Red Fox bullpen. First, they opened the sixth inning against junior right-hander Jake Burt with three consecutive doubles by senior infielder Enrique Wood, Tinsley and junior outfielder Nick DiCarlo; DiCarlo was thrown out at third trying to stretch his hit to a triple.
Sophomore right-hander Ethan Marzo entered in place of Burt and immediately surrendered a solo homer to freshman catcher Tyler Smith, further trimming the Marist lead to 11-8. After the homer, Marzo picked up two strikeouts to avoid further trouble.
In the eighth, after Marzo allowed two of the first three men to reach, Ratchford summoned senior right-hander Chris Ubner from the bullpen. Ubner promptly issued a walk and hit a batter to force in a run, chasing him from the game after only two batters. At that point, with Marist’s lead down to just one run, Ratchford went back to his most trusted bullpen arm for the second consecutive game: Kempler.
One of the runners Kempler inherited did score thanks to a passed ball by Esposito, tying the game at 11. Kempler followed with a strikeout and got Jones to pop out to end the inning.
The game moved to extra innings after neither team scored in the ninth. Monico stroked a one-out base hit up the middle to give Marist life in the tenth. He advanced to second on a wild pitch before Rodriguez came through with what proved to be a game-winning, two-out, two-strike RBI single to put the Red Foxes back in front, 12-11.
Kempler recorded the first two outs of the bottom of the inning in order before freshman infielder Noel Rivera committed an error to give the Aggies life. Redshirt freshman outfielder Nigel Robinson pinch ran and stole second to move into scoring position, but freshman outfielder Bryce Wyche flew out to center field to end the contest; the ball fittingly landed in Rodriguez’s glove to cement a second consecutive Marist victory.
After their performance in game one and with conference play beginning this Friday against Merrimack, it appeared Marist was in danger of entering MAAC games without their first win. However, the offensive heroics of Steinert and Esposito, who had both been bench bats in the early part of the season, acted as a lightning rod to jump-start the team’s offense.
Lincoln and Claiborn each also had a big weekend for the Red Foxes; they both had four hits and drew multiple walks over the course of the weekend. Claiborn’s on-base percentage for the season now sits at .463.
Meanwhile, Kempler has been of unbelievable importance for Marist out of the bullpen. After locking down both wins this weekend, his ERA sits at 2.31 for the season and he seems to have solidified himself as Ratchford’s go-to arm out of the pen.
The Red Foxes will head to Long Island on Tuesday for a final non-conference tune-up with Hofstra before they host Merrimack at Heritage Financial Park on Friday in their MAAC opener.
Edited by Ben Leeds
Graphic from Gavin Hard
Photo from Marist Athletics
For more coverage of Marist athletics, follow @cfmarist on Instagram, X, TikTok, and Bluesky. Sign up to receive daily alerts here.