FORT MYERS, Fla. – The Haverford College baseball team lost to the Augustana (Ill.) Vikings 6-1 on Thursday afternoon. Junior George Hatamiya provided the offense for the Fords with a RBI single in the fifth inning.
After a leadoff single to begin the game, senior Casey Fox retired six straight before running into some trouble in the top of the third inning. An error loaded the bases for Augustana's Nathan Gray, who recorded an RBI groundout to get the Vikings on the board. Gray registered another RBI with a single in the fifth inning. In the bottom half of the fifth, sophomore Thomas Vollaro led off with a walk and moved to second on a sacrifice bunt. With two out, Hatamiya singled to right, scoring Vollaro and cutting the Fords' deficit in half.
In the seventh frame, the Vikings added two more insurance runs. With one out, Brandon Jasper tripled and came around to score on another Gray RBI single. Gray then stole second and would touch home on a John Swiderski RBI knock. A two run double by Danny Fifer in the eighth inning wrapped up the scoring for Augustana. Haverford had runners in scoring position during the seventh and ninth innings, but couldn't push across any more runs.
Sophomore Ben Verducci had two hits for the Fords while senior Mike Tentilucci had a single and two stolen bases in the loss. Jasper paced the Vikings with three hits while Gray had three RBI in the win. Walter White allowed just one run in 6 2/3 innings to score the victory.
Head coach Dave Beccaria's squad drops to 1-5 on the season and Augustana improves to 8-3 on the year. The Fords will take on two Illinois schools tomorrow in Monmouth (9 a.m.) and Dominican (12 p.m.). The team will be looking to avenge a 15-10 loss to Monmouth last Sunday.