UB Baseball claims season's first series win against Miami RedHawks

We got a brief weekend roundup up Sunday night in which we first told you that baseball took their weekend series against Miami, but just because I spent my Sunday running my phone battery to death and all day at the Cherry Blossom Festival doesn't mean we can get away with not giving the fellas their due.

As you already know, the series win was the first of the year for the Bulls, who won a game with a huge offense and one with great pitching and defense, while dropping the middle game 6-3.

Three stars of the weekend:

Bobby Sheppard and Mike Abrunzo

In our recaps through the first half of the season we stayed pretty macro-level, but now it's time to highlight two transfers who are new to the program and have stepped right into the offense. Now hitting .310 on the season, Sheppard is a consistent performer with the bat coming out of Prairie State College. He doesn't have much power, but he does a little bit of everything. This weekend, he was white-hot, going 7-14 with 5 RBI, a run, two doubles (his first of the season), and a stolen base.

Abrunzo, on the other hand, brings the power. The transfer from Lackawanna College starred in the losing effort on Saturday, going 4-4 with a two-run homer after a RBI and a run in Friday's first game. He leads the Bulls with three homers on the season.

Mike McGee and Mike Kaelin

Sunday's pitchers were the stars of the show in the series rubber match. McGee went six innings, allowing only three hits and six baserunners total. Kaelin stepped in after a leadoff double and walk in the sixth and matched McGee for the final three, allowing only two baserunners. Only four RedHawks reached second, and only there in the top of the seventh did Miami have two runners on at the same time.

Nick Sinay

Dude is a star. The junior leads the team in batting average (.330), runs (25), walks (17), hits by pitch (15), and stolen bases (26), most by wide margin. The guy gets on base at an elite level and makes teams pay for it. His 26 steals this season come on only 30 attempts, and he added five this weekend alone.

I started to work Sinay's national rankings into the paragraph above, but they should stand on their own:

T-15th in on-base percentage
T-3rd in total stolen bases
1st in stolen bases per game
T-5th in hits by pitch
T-2nd in hits by pitch per game

That's pretty swell.

***

Buffalo takes on St. Bonaventure this afternoon in Olean. They're already 1-0 on the season against the Bonnies thanks to a 12-5 win back on 1 April.

Go Bulls