Box Score LEWISTON, ME - Tufts received a pair of complete-game wins from pitchers Speros Varinos and Andrew David and swept a double-header at Bates College, 3-2 and 9-0, in the first NESCAC East Division games for both teams on Saturday.
Game one was scheduled for seven innings and went extra. Varinos gave up seven hits and two runs while striking out 10 and walking two in eight innings. He improved to 3-1. David went the distance in the seven-inning second game, pitching a seven-hit shutout. He struck out seven and walked one.
With game one tied 2-2 through seven, Tufts scored the deciding run in the top of the eighth. Sophomore 3B Tommy O'Hara led off with a single and advanced to third on a sacrifice by Mike McLaughlin and a passed ball. A base hit by sophomore DH Dan Kelly brought him home for a 3-2 Tufts lead.
Varinos had pitched out of a jam in the seventh. Two Tufts errors helped put Bobcats on second and third with two outs, but Varinos got a strike out to end the threat.
Bates had scored twice in the bottom of the fourth off Varinos, who walked Brendan Fox and Samuel Warren with one out. Both advanced a base on a wild pitch and scored on a two-run single by Conor Reenstierna.
The Jumbos got the runs right back in the top of the fifth after two were out due to wildness by Bates starter Connor Colombo. Christian Zazzali, Eric Schnepf, and Cody McCallum all walked and then Oscar Kutch was hit by a pitch to score the first Tufts run. Matt Moser also walked to bring home the tying run.
Kelly was 2 for 4 in game one for Tufts, which had just five hits. Bates' John Dinucci and Asher MacDonald both had two hits as the Bobcats finished with seven.
The Jumbos scored all of their nine runs in the first three innings of game two. In the first, O'Hara singled home Kutch, who had walked. The Jumbos scored five in the second, with two scoring on McCallum's single and two more on a Bates error. A three-run third featured a two-run single by O'Hara.
Tufts would get just one hit the rest of the way. O'Hara was 2 for 4 with four rbis in game two and McCallum scored three times while junior LF Harry Brown had two runs.
Ryan McCarthy (2 for 4) and MacDonald (2 for 3) led Bates in the nightcap. Starter Connor Speed took the loss allowing four hits and eight runs (six earned) in 2.1 innings.
Tufts (9-3, 2-0 NESCAC East) and Bates (7-10, 0-2) will play the third and final game of their weekend series on Sunday at noon.
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