MIDDLEBURY, VT. (May 3 2025) - The Tufts University baseball team lives on to fight another day as they split the first two games of the best of three series in a doubleheader against Middlebury on Forbes Field to force game three of the first round of the 2025 New England Small College Athletic Conference Baseball Championship Tournament.
The Jumbos (16-20) relied on the services of ace starter
Silas Reed in game one, and he provided them with the foundation they needed against a stingy Panthers (23-11) staff. He was provided with immediate run support as
Henry Fleckner led off game one with a home run. The solo shot put the Jumbos up 1-0 in the blink of an eye.
Reed mowed down the hosts their first two times through the order, keeping them off the scoreboard through four innings. Meanwhile, the Jumbos bats got to work, as
AJ Lysko tripled to knock in
Owen McKiernan and
James Henshon poked a sacrifice fly to right, scoring
Ozzie Fleischer.
The Jumbos encountered some resistance on the mound after the fifth, and the Panthers began to solve Reed. They plated two runs in the bottom of the fifth before taking a 5-3 lead in the bottom of the seventh to chase the Jumbos starter out of the game.
Derek Desmarais stepped on in relief and managed to stop the bleeding, but the damage was done and Middlebury took game one.
Game two saw the hard-throwing senior
Connor Podeszwa take over on the mound with his best stuff at his fingertips. The senior starter suffered from an early hiccup resulting in two runs for the Panthers, but quickly put the incident behind him to resume his domination on the mound.Â
The Jumbos bats went to work in correcting the early two-run blip, and managed to even the score by the end of the second inning. Fleckner poked a double through the gap to score a pair of runs, tying the game at two runs apiece. An inning later,
Jesse McCullough got in on the fun with a 2-RBI single to score
Connor Brala and McKiernan, putting the Jumbos up 4-2.
Podeszwa, clearly feeling comfortable, pitched 8.0 complete innings for the winning decision. It was an incredible outing, as shown by the emphatic fist pump the starter displayed after getting the third out in the eighth.
Derek Desmarais came on for the second time in one day and pitched a clean ninth inning.
Tufts added some insurance with RBIs from Lysko and Brala to pump their lead up to 6-2, and would secure the win behind Desmarais' strong close to the ballgame.
The Jumbos will take on the Panthers in a win-or-go-home game three in Middlebury tomorrow morning at 11:00 am, weather permitting.
--JUMBOS--
