Matthew Reichert ’28
Staff Writer
Two great days for baseball, so let’s play four! Holy Cross had a weekend of double headers as they traveled to Pennsylvania for two-game sets in back-to-back days against Lehigh and then Lafayette this past Saturday and Sunday.
The Crusaders went into the weekend coming off a loss to the UMass–Lowell River Hawks, but who cares? The River Hawks aren’t conference opponents while the Mountain Hawks and Leopards both are. As far as I’m concerned, the Holy Cross Baseball season began Saturday, March 22, against Lehigh as the Crusaders started playing the games that will decide the Patriot League.
The beginning went well as Holy Cross had a four-run lead by the end of the first inning of the first game of the first double header against Lehigh. The Crusaders scored a total of 13 runs over the course of the shortened game. Jimmy King and Connor Peek led the day with three RBIs apiece while the pitching for the first time in six games held the opposition to under five runs over the course of this opening victory.
In the Patriot League, the first game of a double header is only seven innings while, typically, the second is the full nine. I guess the Crusaders got accustomed to the shortened games because they didn’t let Lehigh play the full nine in the second either: Holy Cross mercied Lehigh in eight innings.
Seniors Chris Baillargeon and Sean Scanlon scored in the top of the first off a Lehigh error and things just got worse for the Mountain Hawks from there. John LaFleur stole second and Jimmy King stole home. Jimmy King had an RBI single, then John LaFleur had one too. Peek doubled in LaFleur in the fifth, would score on a wild pitch in the seventh, and then singled to hang up another run the next inning.
All of this wasn’t really necessary, though very welcome, as pitchers Scanlon and Jake Lenahan only gave up a single run between them in the 12-1 win.
Holy Cross traveled 16 miles across Pennsylvania to try to continue their dominant weekend against Lafayette. At first, it looked like they wouldn’t. A four-run fifth inning gave Lafayette a three-run lead and, because this was the first game of the double header, Holy Cross only had two innings to make up the ground. Thanks to a Royer double and the Sandell sac fly that drove him in, Holy Cross got within one run. A Peek single that same inning tied the game. Royer reappeared in the seventh to drive in the decisive run, this time hitting the sac fly. Holy Cross won 6-5.
It’s hard to win both legs of a double header; Holy Cross had done that and beat Lafayette in the first game the next day. The Crusaders led Lafayette briefly in the top of the fifth, but two-run bursts from Lafayette in the bottom half of that inning and the eighth gave them a lead they would hold until the end. Holy Cross lost 6-9.
Sweeping Lehigh was impressive. At weekend’s end, they were one of only two teams in the Patriot League with a winning record (the other was Navy). Splitting against Lafayette was less impressive. Their winning percentage wouldn’t look good as a batting average. This doesn’t really matter, though. Wins against good teams and wins against bad teams count the same. The Crusaders came out of the two series with a lead in the Patriot League standings.
If Holy Cross is going to win the conference, they just need to keep beating whoever is in front of them. This past weekend, they showed that whoever it is in the conference, no matter if it is home or away or twice in the day, they can.
Featured image courtesy of Holy Cross Athletics
Copy Edited by Lily Wasmund ’28
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