The Huskies move to 4-0 all time against Hofstra
After rain cancelled UConn baseball’s first game of the week against Bryant on Tuesday, the Huskies were back in action Wednesday, securing a 12-4 win over Hofstra at home.
The bats came to life against a Pride team that has not played well on the road all year, coming into the game with a 4-13 record away from home. The Huskies had 11 hits on the day with Rob Rispoli, Tyler Minick, Aidan Dougherty and Sam Biller all recording multi-hit performances. Biller led the team with three RBI, recording two walks to round out his day reaching base safely in all five plate appearances.
UConn tacked on two quick runs in the bottom of the first, leaving Hofstra starter Brandon Brown little time to settle in. Rispoli and Caleb Shpur began the frame with respective walks. After advancing on a wild pitch during Shpur’s at bat, Rispoli scored on a Ryan Daniels single. Minick singled himself — UConn’s fourth-straight base runner — scoring Shpur, but the next three hitters would all go down in order to end the inning.
Starting pitching continues to be an area of success for UConn, emphasized today by the performance of sophomore Charlie West. The left-hander turned in his best outing of the season, throwing five innings and striking out eight hitters. He allowed one unearned run, two hits and two walks. He made two errors, but otherwise impressed in his first start of the season.
The Huskies surrendered a run in the top of the third, but pushed their lead to to seven runs by scoring three in each of the third and fourth innings. Minick reached on a fielder’s choice and advanced to second after Beau Root walked, later scoring on a single up the middle by Dougherty. Bryan Padilla hit into a fielder’s choice of his own, stealing second to put himself in scoring position. A single off the bat of Biller brought Root and Padilla home, aided by a throwing error from Hofstra first baseman Sean Lane.
In the fourth, Rispoli again walked to lead off the inning, scoring immediately on a triple hit by Shpur. The bases quickly loaded after Daniels was hit by a pitch and Minick walked, and two-consecutive fielder’s choices — one by Root and one by Dougherty — brought in two more runs. By the inning’s end, UConn led 8-1.
Hofstra scored next in the top of the sixth, charging two earned runs to Jude Abbadessa out of the bullpen. The righty walked rightfielder Tyler Cox before giving up a home run to Lane, who redeemed himself for his earlier error.
UConn tacked on one more run in the seventh before putting the game out of reach for good in the eighth, plating three in the inning thanks to a two-out, two-run double off the bat of Biller.
Sam Hutchinson, Greg Shaw III and JT Caruso all worked scoreless outings following Abbadessa, though Hofstra would score once more in the ninth off Hector Alejandro. The senior right-hander came on for the final two outs, allowing a hit, a walk and an earned run.
UConn (14-17) returns to conference play this weekend to face Georgetown at home. First pitch on Friday is at 6:05 p.m. on FloSports.