In the elimination bracket of the MAAC Championship, Marist baseball’s season came to an end with a 6-2 loss to Niagara on Friday. In a win-or-go-home situation, sophomore right-hander Nate Bennet delivered a masterful performance on the mound, shutting down Marist’s offense.
Bennet was in complete control throughout the game, turning in the longest outing of his career. He tossed 7.2 innings, striking out six, allowing just two runs on five hits.
“It’s really easy to throw when I got such a great defense behind me,” Bennet said in a post-game interview with ESPN+.
On the other side, the Red Foxes entered with an exhausted bullpen after fighting off elimination in the first three games of the tournament, making length from graduate student right-hander Chris Ubner crucial. Ubner was unable to provide it, as the Marist lead quickly disappeared, and his outing came to an end after just 1.2 innings of work.
Walks, wild pitches and errors proved costly as Niagara capitalized on every mistake Marist made. The Purple Eagles had the leadoff man on in five straight innings, which resulted in a run four out of five times.
The momentum from last night’s 13-7 victory appeared to carry over into the early going for the Red Foxes, as Marist scored in the first frame for the third straight game in the tournament. Senior infielder AJ Brotz sparked the early rally with a leadoff single, his ninth hit of the tournament. Graduate outfielder Nathan Lincoln followed with a single to right field that took a wild hop, resulting in an RBI and a 1-0 lead. However, they did not see the lead for the remainder of the game.
In the third, the Purple Eagles took a page out of Marist’s playbook: small ball. Back-to-back bunts set up runners in scoring position before a sacrifice fly from freshman infielder Nick Cote brought Niagara’s third run home.
The middle innings saw a slight lull in the action; Bennet retired 13 straight batters, as Marist had not seen a single baserunner since the first inning. Senior catcher/infielder Kyle Pollack snapped the streak in the top of the fifth, but the Red Foxes were unable to turn the opportunity into runs.
“These teams are playing deep into the tournament now. You know, a couple of days in, you can tell everyone’s kind of off to a little bit of a slow start,” said Marist head coach Lance Ratchford in reference to the lull in action during an in-game interview with ESPN+. “We gotta be more selective at the plate, we gotta lay off everything up, we gotta get the ball out of the air, [Bennet’s] been doing a good job of just getting us to chase everything up, and obviously, their outfield’s just kind of having a field day right now.”
Niagara put traffic on the bases in the fifth while Marist’s defense faltered once again in the middle innings. A wild pick-off attempt advanced the runner to third, before a single up the middle drove in another run for Niagara. Threatening once more in the sixth, junior catcher/outfielder Rees Kozar singled to center field and extended the lead to three.
Marist committed its third error of the game—a throwing error by sophomore catcher Drew McGowan—in the eighth inning, and it once again proved costly. Niagara took full advantage of the mistake, adding an insurance run.
“I think we played a really clean baseball game, we handled the baseball, we executed when we needed to execute, had quality at-bats, threw strikes. It was a great game, and we got more baseball to play,” said Niagara head coach Matt Spatafora in a post-game interview with ESPN+.
Including the MAAC Championship, Marist’s season ends with a 19-15 record against conference opponents.
Edited by Max Rosen
Photo From Marist Athletics Stockton Photo
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