After a victorious night at Dunkin’ Park in Hartford, Conn. on Tuesday, the UConn baseball team was back in action in Storrs for another midweek matchup at Elliot Ballpark, this time against Army.
Thomas Galusha started on the mound for the Huskies, but did not get off to the best start as he allowed two runs to begin the game. Going into the bottom of the first inning down a pair of runs, UConn cut some of the damage by scoring one. Junior Aidan Dougherty singled to left field, scoring graduate student Caleb Shpur in the first inning. Army held on to the 2-1 lead after the first frame.
Sophomore Sam Hutchinson came in to pitch the second inning and shut down Army’s offense. Hutchinson stayed in the game for the third frame and worked around some trouble on the bases to keep Army at two runs. However, in the fourth inning, Army added a run with a solo homer to take the 3-1 lead over UConn.
In the fifth inning, Hook C made their comeback. It started with redshirt freshman Rob Rispoli’s RBI single to bring it back to a one-run ballgame. Junior Ryan Daniels then came up to the plate and launched a three-run homer to earn the Huskies their first lead of the night. That makes for three straight games where Daniels has homered, and this time, he turned the game around for the Hook C. UConn ended the inning with the 5-3 lead over Army.
In the seventh inning, the Huskies secured an insurance run as graduate student Sam Biller stole home base. UConn was now up 6-3 over Army.
Army did not go down without a fight, as they scored a run in the top of the eighth inning to slowly attempt to crawl back. However, sophomore pitcher Sean Finn struck out an Army batter to strand runners on second and third base, keeping the Huskies in front.
The night was nowhere near over for the Huskies, as they added on offensively with a two-out rally. In the eighth inning, junior Grant MacArthur cashed in a two-out run on a single to left field to extend their lead to 7-4 over Army. UConn added on another run on their rally before Daniels came up to bat again and blasted a grand slam to right field. This was Daniels’ fourth home run in the last three games and his second homer of the night. After being down early in the game, UConn stunned Army and claimed the 12-4 lead late in the game.
The Huskies earned their 10th straight win with a 12-5 victory over Army at Elliot Ballpark. Daniels led the team offensively, finishing the night with two home runs and six RBIs. This win improves UConn’s record to 22-17 overall, and they remain at 8-4 record in Big East action.
Up next for the Hook C is a weekend series on the road in Queens, NY to face off against Big East opponent, St. John’s. The series will open on Friday, April 25 at 3:00 p.m., continue Saturday, April 26 with first pitch at 1:00 p.m. and wrap up on Sunday, April 27 at 1:00 p.m. All the games will be available to stream on MIXLR.