With a 10-15 record and two straight losses to a pair of Northeast opponents, it was clear that UConn baseball needed a win going into Monday’s game against the Central Connecticut Blue Devils at Elliot Ballpark.
The pressure was on, and with graduate student Stephen Quigley on the mound, the Huskies got the job done with a 14-6 win.
After a brilliant showing in his previous start against Rutgers, the right-hander had plenty of positives going into this matchup, yet he still struggled against Central Connecticut. The Halifax native was pulled 3.2 innings into the game after giving up five earned runs. He was pulled for Joe Cinnella later in the fourth inning.
On the other hand, the Hook C bats were on fire in Monday’s win, especially in the second inning. The Huskies strung together plenty of hits and collected four RBIs before the biggest blow of the inning, a bases-loaded double from Maddix Dalena to bring home both Matt Garbowski and Luke Broadhurst and cap off a six-run inning.
However, UConn was far from done in their pursuit of a completely dominant ballgame. Between the fourth and seventh innings of Monday’s win, it was mostly uneventful, other than a few hits that ultimately resulted in no extra runs for the Hook C. However, that perseverance changed in the bottom of the eighth.
After the Blue Devils tacked on a run in the top of that inning, the UConn offense once again broke through. After a double from Jake Studley with no outs, Paul Tammaro stepped into the batter’s box with the chance to bring home his teammate, and he did just that. On a 2-1 count, the graduate infielder smacked a ball up the middle that flew past Central Connecticut outfielder Hunter Pasqualini and Studley took advantage of the error, scoring from second to make it a 9-6 ballgame.
Yet, the biggest blow of the game arrived later that inning. After both Korey Morton and Garbowski got on base via walks, that set up a bases-loaded situation for freshman Tyler Minick. On just two pitches, the Pennsylvania native sent the baseball over the right field seats for a grand slam of epic proportions. That put the game far out of reach for Central Connecticut, and some additional insurance from Bryan Padilla gave the Huskies a 14-6 lead that remained the final score.
While the bulk of the credit should go to the way that Connecticut’s bats came alive, a great deal of recognition certainly should go to the Hook C bullpen, who pitched very well following the poor start. In total, UConn’s trio of Cinnella, Braden Quinn and Joe Carrea allowed just six hits and one run following 3.2 innings from Quigley.
After the Huskies’ game against Columbia was cancelled on Tuesday due to rain, the team will have a couple of days off before their first Big East series of the season against Xavier over the weekend.