When Chris Jackson (Midlothian, Va./Manchester) led off the bottom of the eighth inning with a bomb of a hit that fell just short of the right field wall for a triple, it looked like the Rams were on the brink of their third straight nail-biting win.
But it was not to be as the George Mason Patriots were able to hold onto their lead and defeat VCU 8-5 at The Diamond Sunday afternoon.
VCU did win the series 2-1, however, after back-to-back walk-off wins Friday and Saturday.
The Rams came into the eighth trailing 7-3 courtesy of a dominating six-strikeout performance by Patriots pitcher Dan Jaycox.
“We came out a little flat,” head coach Paul Keyes said. Jaycox “threw a lot of off-speed pitches, and we just didn’t make the right adjustments.”
The Score
VCU 5
GMU 8
But Jackson’s triple, which many of the 263 fans tried to will out of the park with their voices, seemed to light a fire under the Rams.
Pinch hitter John Leonard’s (Virginia Beach, Va./Kellam) RBI single brought Jackson home.
Carlos Rodiguez (Vega Baja, Puerto Rico) then hit a hard grounder but beat out the throw to first with some nice base running. The single sent Leonard to third and brought Richard Gonzalez (Puerto Rico) to the plate as the potential tying run.
Gonzalez would hit a sacrifice fly to bring Leonard home, but Sergio Miranda (Bayamon, Puerto Rico) hit a pop fly to retire the Rams.
The Rams allowed the Patriots to load the bases at the top of the ninth, but right-hand pitcher Howard Deemer (Washington, N.J./Belvidere), who had come on to relieve starting Right-hand pitcher Bill Wieland (Marlton. N.J./Okalossa Walton CC), managed to hold the Patriots to one run before the bottom side of the inning.
Rams leading hitter Jared Bolden (Lynchburg, Va./E.C. Glass) got to first base on balls to start off the ninth. Designated hitter Barrett Ripley (Glen Allen, Va./Hermitage) then hit a hard bouncer to second and was just barely beaten by the throw to first.
Returning to the batter’s box was the starter of the rally, Jackson. Jackson did not reach base this time, but his ground out moved Bolden to third.
Two walks later and the bases were loaded, setting up pinch hitter Brad Bonney (Norfolk, Va./Maury) to be the hero. But Mason’s Chris Fournier was just able to handle Bonney’s hard grounder and throw him out at first.
“It was good to come out winning (the first two games of the series),” Keyes said. “We could have gotten out of this one early, but we played through it. We put the winning run on the plate and that’s all we can do”
The loss put the Rams down to 17-11 (4-4 CAA). They will take the field this Wednesday against cross town rival University of Richmond Spiders. Right-hander Phillip Deane (Richmond, Va./ Varina) will start the game for the Rams, which beings at 7:00 p.m. at The Diamond.