Baseball Falls Short In Home Opener Against Richard Stockton

(Game 1) / (Game 2)

Widener opened the scoring in both games of today's doubleheader against Richard Stockton, but could not hang onto the lead as it lost both, 8-5 and 6-4.

Dennis Hocker (Coral Spring, FL) was responsible for the first run of the Pride's 2012 season. With two outs in the bottom of the second inning, Hocker hit a shot to right-center field to score Michael Riverso (Philadelphia, PA) all the way from first, who reached first on a walk. Richard Stockton (3-1) turned the inning around, however, when it scored two runs off of one hit in the top of the third.

With three hits and two Widener errors in the fourth inning, the Ospreys were able to add four to their run count, making the score 6-1. After giving up four runs, the Pride (0-2) rallied with two outs to gain back all four runs in the bottom of the fifth inning. Stockton was able to add two more runs, one in each of the sixth and seventh inning, but Widener went down in order in the bottom of the seventh and was unable to take the win.

Game two started with lead-off batter Matt Hone (Newtown, PA) reaching first on a walk. After stealing second with two outs, Hone was brought home by a single up the middle by senior first baseman Bill Hollingsworth (Drexel Hill, PA).

The Pride held a 3-1 lead going into the top of the fifth, but an Osprey rally of four hits and one error committed by Widener resulted in five runs and a lead swap. Dan Sieracki (Cherry Hill, NJ) stepped up to the plate as lead-off in the bottom of the fifth inning and hit a home run over the blue monster in left field, giving him his 18th career long ball and adding a run to the Pride's score. Unfortunately, Richard Stockton held Widener to just that one last run and the score stood still at 8-5 until the end of the game.

Hollingsworth ended the day batting 2-for-7 with two RBIs. Sieracki scored twice and had two hits. Sean Saverio (Horsham, PA), between the two games, scored twice and was responsible for two hits and two RBIs.

Salvatore Spera (Norristown, PA) started game one, pitching 3 2/3 innings and giving up two earned runs to go with three walks and three strikeouts. Game two saw senior Rick Kazigian (West Chester, PA) stepping to the mound for four innings. He struck out three and only gave up one run. Spera takes the loss for game one and Brandon McCloskey (Belford, NJ) for game two. Richard Stockton's Drew Holt and Bryan Frank each take home a win.

Widener travels to Fort Myers, FL for the week of March 3-9 to take part in the Gene Cusic Collegiate Classic over spring break. Its first game is against Muhlenberg on Saturday at 6:00 pm. There will be no audio broadcast for the games taking place in Florida.

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