After taking a doubleheader from Canisius on Wednesday, the UB baseball team (11-25, 3-11 Mid-American Conference) beat the Niagara Purple Eagles (17-18) 17-14 to win bragging rights in Western New York. Played under a clear sky at the Pepsi center, the game was a battle down to the final out.
UB right-hander Tyler Balentine started the game for the Bulls and went six innings giving up nine hits, walked two, and had nine strikeouts. Balentine only had two shaky innings. In the second inning, Balentine allowed a single and a double before giving up a three run blast to Niagara freshman Jeff Vincent to tie the score at three. In the sixth, with UB up 12-5, Balentine had men on first and second before giving up his third home run of the day, another three-run shot that cut the Bulls' lead to four.
It was a similar situation to that which occurred in a doubleheader against St. Bonaventure last week. UB head coach Bill Breene elected to stay with his starter and was burned. Faced with the same decision in Thursday's game, Breene stuck with Balentine who put two men on before striking out the next two batters to get the Bulls out of the inning.
"We knew he was capable of doing that," said Breene. "It was just a matter of hoping that he could make the pitches he needed to make to get us out of the inning and that's what he did."
Unlike Niagara, who got their runs in bunches, UB struck early and often scoring in every inning on their way to 17 runs.
"We had an outstanding day offensively," said Breene. "We were able, every time they got close, to squeak away from them."
Leading the charge at the plate was sophomore Joe Mihalics. Mihalics had four hits and was one double away from hitting for the cycle. Sophomore James Kingsley added five RBI off of three hits including his first career home run, a three run shot to dead center in the fifth inning.
UB's Brandon DiCesare had a great day at the plate, scoring four runs with three hits. In the bottom of the fourth inning DiCesare hit a double off the outfield wall, setting a new UB record for career doubles with 37.
"It was good to finally get it done," said DiCesare. "I thought I would get it done earlier in the season but I've been struggling a bit."
"He had a horrible start," said Breene. "Before our first game at Duke, I said to him if you have a year like you're capable of this is a record you can break. He's close to the career hits record and he might still be able to challenge for that."
As well as the game went for the Bulls, the seventh inning is one they would like to forget. After battling to get out of the sixth, Balentine was replaced with senior Matt Franklin. Franklin walked the first batter he faced, gave up a hit to the second and walked the third before sophomore Chris McGraw (2-2) came in to relieve him. During a warm up pitch, however, McGraw reached for his arm and walked off the field. His status is unknown.
"We're not sure yet, he went in and he threw one pitch getting loose and he heard something snap in his elbow," said Breene. "At this point we're not sure what's going to happen. He'll probably get x-rayed today or tomorrow and then we'll see where he's at."
After McGraw left without facing a batter, Breene went to sophomore James Mantzanis. Mantzanis (1-1) struggled early, allowing the Purple Eagles to tie the score at 13 with a five-run seventh although only one run was charged to him.
In the bottom of the seventh DiCesare led off with an infield single to put a man on. After the next two batters made outs, back-to-back doubles by senior Kevin Nesteruk and sophomore Andrew Wengert put UB back up by two.
In the eighth inning Mantzanis had two men on before an inning ending 4-6-3 double play stopped the Niagara threat. In the Bulls' half of the eighth, sophomore Phil Vanhorne doubled and Mihalics followed with a two-run homer to give the Bulls a 17-13 lead.
Niagara was able to battle back all day, erasing leads of three and five by the Bulls. In the bottom of the ninth it looked as though they had something going again when Niagara freshman Andrew MacNevin led off with his second home run of the day to cut the UB lead to three and get the home crowd nervous. Mantzanis did not get rattled, and struck out the next three batters to earn his first win of the year.
"My hitters gave me a good opportunity to come back in the game, they scored a lot of runs, so there really wasn't any pressure on me and I just took it from there," said Mantzanis. "You can't really throw many balls past anybody, it's kind of hard. You have to get ahead in the count, that's what I was trying to do. My changeup was really working for me, so it enabled me to get the batters off balance."
UB travels to play Pittsburgh in a three-game, non-conference series this weekend.
Photo: Meredith Forrest Kulwicki
