Box Score BALTIMORE, Md. – A brutal schedule on its spring break left the Rutgers University-Camden baseball team with a 2-8 record, an eight-game losing streak and in need of a spark to turn things around.
The Scarlet Raptors found that spark here Wednesday.
Rutgers-Camden pounded out 11 hits and took advantage of seven walks and five errors as they defeated the perennially-strong Blue Jays, 11-2.
Rutgers-Camden improves to 3-8. Johns Hopkins falls to 8-5 with its third straight loss.
The Blue Jays, who have been ranked as high as No. 24 nationally in the
D3baseball.com poll of March 15, received 40 votes toward that Top 25 poll this week. They also received six votes toward the ABCA/
Collegiate Baseball poll this week. Johns Hopkins is the ninth team the Scarlet Raptors have faced so far this season that has been ranked, or received votes, toward at least one of the two Division III national polls. Rutgers-Camden is 3-6 in those nine games.
Rutgers-Camden took the lead for good in the second inning when junior first baseman
Joe Sigismondi (Blackwood, NJ/Highland Regional) was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded, forcing home a run.
The Raptors scored six times in the third on six hits and two errors, sending 12 men to the plate. The frame included RBI singles from Sigismondi, senior center fielder
Bobby Romano (Vineland, NJ/Vineland), sophomore right fielder
Zach Ellin (Marlton, NJ/Cherokee), sophomore second baseman
Joe Brooks (Blackwood, NJ/Gloucester Catholic) and sophomore shortstop
Pedro Perez (Burlington, NJ/Burlington City). Rutgers-Camden added four more runs in the fourth, aided by a two-run double by Brooks, a run-scoring single by Perez and an RBI ground out by senior designated hitter
Connor Hall (Delran, NJ/Delran). While the Raptors were piling up runs, junior righty
Ryan Sullivan (Livingston, NJ/Livingston) was holding the Blue Jays hitless into the fifth inning. With one out in the fifth, senior right fielder
Chris Casey (Wellesley, MA/Boston College High School) broke up the no-hitter with a single to left. It was the only hit off Sullivan (1-1) in seven innings. He walked two and struck out eight.
Brooks finished the day 2-for-4 with two runs and three RBIs, while Perez was 2-for-3 with two RBIs, Romano went 2-for-3 with two runs and one RBI and Ellin was 2-for-5 with two runs and one RBI. Sigismondi went 1-for-3 with two runs and two RBIs. The hit was the 98th of his Rutgers-Camden career.
The Scarlet Raptors open their home schedule Thursday with a 3:30 p.m. makeup game against Penn State-Abington. The contest was postponed from the originally-scheduled season opener March 5.
