GORHAM, Maine – Senior Griff Tewksbury went 2-for-4 with a double, home run, and three RBIs, but Bates College baseball could not complete a rally in a 6-4 loss to No. 6 Southern Maine on Wednesday afternoon at USM Baseball Stadium.
The host Huskies (28-8) scored five runs in the first three innings and kept the Bobcats (18-14) off the board in the eighth and ninth innings to pull out the victory.
USM's Dan Kinnon (3-0) picked up the win, recording two consecutive outs after starter Zack Bean went 4.1 innings, allowing two runs on five hits while striking out two. Matt Verrier went 3-for-3 with two runs scored while Forrest Chadwick, Troy Thibodeau, and Matt Bender each charted two hits.
Four different Bobcat pitchers – junior Aidan Sullivan (Yarmouth, Maine), sophomore Rob DiFranco (Melrose, Mass.), junior Sam Maliska (Palo Alto, Calif.), and senior Dean Bonneau (Amherst, Mass.) – each pitched a scoreless inning of relief.
First-year Brendan Fox (West Hartford, Conn.) went 2-for-4 with an RBI and a run scored while junior Mekae Hyde (Lewiston, Maine) and sophomore Samuel Warren (Norfolk, Va.) each tallied two hits.
Tewksbury (Concord, N.H.) staked the Bobcats to a 1-0 lead in the top of the first as he hit his solo home run to right center with two outs.
Southern Maine took a 2-1 lead in the bottom half of the frame as Chadwick knocked a triple down the right field line to score the team's first run, and he eventually came home in a first-and-third situation later in the frame.
USM tacked on another run in the last half of the second on a sacrifice fly from Nick DiBiase and added two runs in the bottom of the third to take a 5-1 edge. Thibodeau hit a single through the left side to score a pair of runs for the Huskies.
Tewksbury notched his second RBI of the game with a sacrifice fly to left field in the top of the fifth to pull the Bobcats within 5-2, but USM matched the run as Verrier sent a solo homer to left center in the bottom of the inning.
Bates continued to rally in the seventh as Fox singled to left field to score a run, and Tewksbury pulled a double down the right field line to plate another. Trailing 6-4, the Bobcats could not advance a runner past second in the eighth or ninth to complete the comeback.
Next, Bates hosts No. 8 Tufts on Saturday in a doubleheader beginning at 1 p.m. with the NESCAC East Division's top seed and the right to host the NESCAC Championship on the line.