Friday, Feb. 14, William and Mary baseball (1-2, 0-0 CAA) dropped a nail-biting home opener 10-9 to Rhode Island (2-1, 0-0 A-10) at Plumeri Park in Williamsburg, Va. In the seven-inning second game of that day’s doubleheader, the Tribe evened the series with a hard-fought 5-4 victory. The Green and Gold lost the final game of the series 36-22 on Sunday.
Heading into Friday’s opener, the Tribe looked to start the season off strong under first year head coach Rob McCoy. McCoy brings experience from a 16-year career at Niagara University, where he is the all-time win leader. Before the Tribe’s opening series, McCoy emphasized culture, core values, and a transition to new approaches as the keys to the team’s success.
“Our culture is really important to us: our core values, how we play the game, sort of our philosophies within the game, offense, defense, pitching,” McCoy said. “So it’s not [about] major physical changes other than mental changes and approach, and we’re really big on the mental game and things like that.”
McCoy also noted that while previous William and Mary coach Mike McRae found success with an outcome-oriented approach focused on bringing experienced talent through the transfer portal, he brings a different coaching perspective to the table. For McCoy, long-term player development and a focus on the mental game will be instrumental in establishing a more process-oriented philosophy. While optimistic that his own philosophy will translate into long-term success for the Tribe, McCoy emphasized that patience and trust will be key in the short term.
“We’re going to invest more in high school players and long-term players that we can grow up together, and so that’s gonna take a while. When we made roster decisions this fall, we made decisions based on our future, so some older guys ended up losing out to some younger guys that we know long-term are going to benefit us. So we’re going to have growing pains,” he said.
McCoy acknowledged that the differences between his own approach and McRae’s may require adjustment in the short term.
“I’m more of a process-oriented coach, and staying in the game, keeping your cool, understanding that it’s a game of failure, and working through breathing routines and all that stuff, I think that’s one way that we would probably disagree — we’re both good at what we do,” McCoy said. “So I think that that’s been a little bit of a difference for the guys to kind of get used to how I coach and how I want them to view the game.”
Graduate student pitcher Zack Potts took the mound for the Tribe to kick off Friday’s game, burning out of the gates with a high-velocity first inning. From the opening innings, though, the Tribe found themselves fighting back against a persistent Rhode Island offense. In the top of the first, sophomore shortstop Reece Moroney opened the scoring for the Rams with a sacrifice fly that plated senior third baseman Anthony DePino. In the bottom half of the inning, junior designated hitter Charlie Iriotakis was able to scratch home the Tribe’s first run on a ground ball to second base, but Rhode Island quickly retook the lead in the top of the second inning on an RBI single to left from DePino.
The Tribe gave Rhode Island junior pitcher Jeremy Urena trouble in the bottom of the third inning. With a runner on first and no outs, freshman shortstop Jamie Laskofski lined a hard single into center field for his first collegiate hit, putting a runner in scoring position. Graduate student center fielder Ben Parker took full advantage, launching an outside pitch 372 feet to right field for a three-run blast that marked William and Mary’s first home run of the season.
However, the Tribe’s 4-2 lead didn’t last long. With runners on first base and third base, Rhode Island sophomore second baseman Scott Penney turned on a changeup from Potts, lifting a high fly ball to right field that just cleared the wall. Just like that, the Tribe relinquished its lead, going down 5-4 to the Rams. The visitors extended their lead to 7-4 over the next two innings behind a ground-rule double from Moroney and a solo home run from graduate student infielder DJ Perron.
In the bottom of the fifth, William and Mary again showed some life behind a 2-RBI triple from Iriotakis. With runners on first and second, Iriotakis drove a line drive deep to center over senior Brody McKenzie’s head, scoring both runners and bringing the Tribe within striking distance of Rhode Island.
The URI offense continued to give the Tribe problems in the top of the sixth. In his second inning of relief work, senior pitcher Carter Lovasz ran into trouble, surrendering an RBI single to junior designated hitter Jack Hopko. A following bunt from Perron pushed the Rams’ lead to 9-6.
Despite Rhode Island’s tenacious offensive performance, the Green and Gold didn’t go down without a fight. Freshman third baseman Matthew Kosuda smacked his first career home run in the bottom of the sixth, giving the Tribe its much-needed seventh run. Meanwhile, Lovasz stayed in the game until the top of the eighth, allowing Perron to hit a sacrifice fly in the top of the eighth that drove home the Rams’ 10th run.
In the bottom of that inning, the Tribe’s freshmen took matters into their own hands, mounting a two-out rally that again brought William and Mary within one run. After Kosuda smacked an RBI double against the left field wall, Laskofski stepped up with Kosuda on second base and lined a hard grounder down the middle of the infield, just sneaking under the diving shortstop Moroney’s glove. Kosuda scored easily, and with Laskofski on first, Rhode Island’s attention turned to Parker, who represented the go-ahead run. Parker worked the count full, but couldn’t hold back his swing on sophomore Joe Sabbath’s sixth pitch, striking out to end the inning. In the bottom of the ninth, the Tribe put runners on first and second, but Sabbath was able to shut the door for the Rams, striking out graduate student second baseman Henry Jackson to end the game.
After the game, Coach McCoy emphasized the team’s commitment to playing hard and grit during tough moments, and took responsibility for the outcome in a game that was decided on several tough breaks for the Tribe.
“Like I told the guys after the game, I botched that game. I managed it very poorly. I managed it based on expectations that I had about guys, instead of more so having feel inside the game of what was actually happening,” McCoy said. “And so that’s where the problems started, and then after that, the guys themselves showed a ton of grit.”
McCoy pointed to the team’s strong defensive showing as a clear bright spot that the Tribe can build off of going forward. Meanwhile, he underscored that the team showed a promising commitment to process and mental resilience throughout the game, even though the tally didn’t favor William and Mary after nine innings.
“While we didn’t come through at the end, we talk about winning each breath and we talk about playing pitch-to-pitch, and I thought even though the situation sped up, I thought each guy took good deep breaths and played pitch-to-pitch, and that’s gonna pay off over time,” he said. “It didn’t happen tonight, but it will pay off over time.”
The Tribe looked to split the afternoon’s opening doubleheader with Rhode Island in the following seven-inning nightcap, but fell behind its opponents 2-0 in the first inning. The Tribe offense was quick to climb out of this hole, as a bases-clearing double from senior right fielder Christian Rush gave William and Mary a 3-2 lead. Rhode Island reclaimed its lead in the top of the third inning on an RBI single and a sacrifice bunt, but two innings later, junior catcher Jerry Barnes III laced a triple to deep center field before Kosuda brought him home to tie the game on a sacrifice groundout.
With the score even at four runs apiece in the bottom of the sixth, Jackson ripped an RBI single that scored senior left fielder Lucas Carmichael and catapulted the Tribe into the lead. This run would prove to be decisive, as junior reliever Owen Pierce shut down the Rams offense in the seventh to secure the win.
Sunday’s matchup was the finale of the series, and offense was the name of the game. The Tribe answered a three-run opening frame from Rhode Island with a four-run inning of their own. The Rams came right back with a three-run second inning, but Rush launched a three-run home run to keep the Tribe in business.
William and Mary kept up the high rate of scoring, sending ten runs across the plate in the second inning before adding three more in the fifth and five in the seventh. Barnes III launched a pinch-hit three-run blast in the fifth inning, while Carmichael had a five RBI day with four hits. Iriotakis notched four RBIs of his own, and Parker had an impressive three-hit day, scoring four runs and driving one home. Laskofski continued to make an impact in his first collegiate series, reaching base in all four of his at bats. Fellow freshman Kosuda did the same, driving in a 2-RBI base hit and scoring two runs. The Green and Gold offense produced a remarkable 22 runs in total.
However, Rhode Island mounted an offensive onslaught that the Tribe couldn’t match. The visitors never took their foot off the pedal, scoring in every inning, a showing punctuated by a wild 17-run fifth inning. They combined for seven home runs and five doubles, with DePino, Penney, graduate student first baseman DJ Perron and senior right fielder Eric Genther logging one of each. Freshman center fielder Adonis Medina slugged two home runs of his own. When it was all said and done, the Rams had scored 36 runs. The 36-22 final scoreline amounted to 58 runs in total, which is tied for the fourth-highest single game run total in the history of DI baseball.
Hindered by five errors, the Tribe went on to lose a Tuesday, Feb. 18 midweek game to in-state rival Richmond (4-0, 0-0 A-10) by a score of 12-3. The Green and Gold will look to get back in the win column Friday, Feb. 21, when it hosts Marist (0-4, 0-0 MAAC) for the first leg of a three-game series at Plumeri Park in Williamsburg, Va.
