Rewards go to those who earn them and the Yellowjackets got their individual honors for their 4-0 weekend. Three individual players were awarded for their performances, clinching a triple crown of league awards.
With a five game stretch, where he hit at a .471 clip with five RBIs, senior shortstop Dan Pfohl was given Liberty League Hitter of the Week honors. Pfohl also had an on base percentage of .526 and had a game winning hit as well.
Sophomore pitcher Pete McEneaney won the Liberty League Pitcher of the Week Award with solid outings all week. Over the course of the week, McEneaney pitched 10 total innings, not allowing an earned run in any of them. McEneaney also had a complete game shutout against Union College, allowing only four hits and striking out eight.
The final award of the week went to freshman pitcher Blair Veenema. Veenema was given the Liberty League Rookie of the Week, no doubt being helped by a complete game victory, allowing no earned runs, one unearned run, five hits and striking out nine. Opponents went 5-31, a .161 mark against Veenema during the week.
Unfortunately these awards did not lead to a solid week for the ‘Jackets. The team went 1-4 through their Sunday doubleheader which left them with an 11-16 record overall, but still a league leading 10-6 record. The ‘Jackets remain in first place, four points ahead of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and St. Lawrence University.
In a midweek match up against the Rochester Institute of Technology, UR fell despite an admirable effort. The team battled back on three separate occasions before finally falling to RIT 10-5. With a tough pitching performance to overcome, the hitting did its best to try and keep UR in the game and slug along with the RIT team. UR compiled 11 hits, and overcame three deficits to tie the score in the fourth, sixth and seventh innings.
Over the weekend, the Yellowjackets had two doubleheaders against RPI. In the first game of the weekend, the ‘Jackets started the weekend off right with a 4-3 win. Veenema was not as strong as he has been throughout the season, but he did enough to give the team a chance with a quality outing. Through 5.1 innings, Veenema gave up six hits and three runs while striking out three batters.
Sophomore John Fishback came in for the save, giving up just two hits through his 1.2 innings. However, in the second game of the day, it seems that things just couldn’t or wouldn’t go right for UR. Usually with 11 hits and nine runs scored, a team has a good chance to win, but RPI had much more offense and the ‘Jackets continually shot themselves in the foot, recording six errors.
RPI batters had 18 hits and scored 26 runs, suggesting that the UR pitching staff was still very unsteady. Their performance fell short of that from the weekend before.
Despite the 26-9 loss the day before, UR came out on Sunday for two more games with RPI. Regrettably, the results were quite similar. Once again, the pitching got the team into a hole which was too deep for the offensive power to overcome.
Junior outfielder Frank Infurna had a great day at the plate, going 3-3, with a home run, a double, two runs scored and three RBIs. However, the ‘Jackets fell to RPI 12-7. Neither the offense nor the pitching was there for the second part of the Sunday doubleheader, resulting in a 7-5 Yellowjackets loss.
On Tuesday, UR battled against SUNY Cortland, ranked third in the country. The Yellowjackets lost the contest by a score of 14-2, but there were many impressive individual performances. Sophomore Jim Bard had two hits and scored a run.
With plenty of games to go before the end of the regular season, the ‘Jackets will look to right the ship with four games against Vassar College next weekend.
Goff can be reached at sgoff@campustimes.org
