If baseball were a game played on paper, the Elon University baseball team would probably be undefeated after the first weekend of the season. But the Virginia Commonwealth University Rams played at Latham Park on Sunday, Feb. 17, threw their top pitcher in senior left-hander Ryan Farrar and ultimately came away with a 6-2 victory over the Phoenix.
“Bottom line is you don’t play on paper,” Elon coach Mike Kennedy said. “Our program has a little bit of history of being successful and we’re generally going to get a team’s best and we have to be ready for that and ready to give our best. If this was our best then we have some work to do but I don’t think it was.”
Kennedy sent junior David Whitehead to the mound in hopes of rebounding from Saturday’s late inning bullpen meltdown. Clocked between 89 and 91 mph on the chilly North Carolina afternoon, the right-hander relatively breezed through the first two innings, recording two strikeouts each inning. VCU broke through in the third inning though.
VCU junior infielder Trevor Marino singled to left with one down. After freshman outfielder Cody Acker flew out to centerfield, Marino stole second and was knocked home two batters later on a ringing double to the wall from senior infielder Jordan Weymouth.
“I made a couple mistake pitches and they took advantage of it,” Whitehead said.
The mistakes carried over to the fourth inning. Already leading 2-0, the first two batters reached against the Elon righty. On a 2-2 pitch to VCU senior outfielder Taylor Buran, Whitehead left a fastball up and Buran made him pay, taking it over the fence in left-center.
“I left one ball up and the kid did what he should have done with it: He hit it hard,” Whitehead said.
After retiring the next batter on a groundout, Whitehead walked Marino on six pitches, forcing Kennedy to make the switch to senior lefty Andrew MacDonald.
“(Whitehead) had really good stuff,” Kennedy said. “He was locating and if you watched after he gave up the big hit, he made a mistake in the middle of the plate and started rushing and abandoning his breaking ball and he couldn’t throw that for a strike. He elevated his fastball and he got in trouble. He was disappointed that he gave up the two-run double and he couldn’t real it back in and it got away quickly. Two swings dictated his outing, though.”
MacDonald came in and calmed the Rams bats. He didn’t allow a hit until the eighth inning when Weymouth doubled down the right field line. He later scored the Rams sixth run of the game three batters later when sophomore shortstop Vimael Machin sent a ball to the left-center wall. Junior centerfielder Aaron Schuerman made a diving attempt at the ball, but it fell to the warning track for an RBI double.
In his third career game with the Phoenix, junior second baseman Wil Leathers was the only Elon batter to collect multiple hits in the game against a tough VCU pitching staff. Leathers went 2-4 while knocking in one of the Elon runs and scoring the other.
“We faced a good arm,” Kennedy said. “They saved their best guy knowing that we were probably the better team in this tournament and he was pretty good. He was really good actually. I’d like to have him.”
For the first time since the start of the 2007 season, the Phoenix is 1-2 to begin the campaign. Having scored eight runs in the first inning of the season on Friday, Feb. 15 against Marist College, the Phoenix could only score 11 more in 26 innings. While the weather could have played a factor, being 60 degrees on Friday but snowing and bitter cold on Saturday and Sunday, Kennedy said his team wont use that as an excuse.
“We didn’t bounce around, and maybe it’s because its cold, but it was cold for both teams so that’s not an excuse,” he said. “We just have to have more energy and excitement. We worked our tail off to get to this point of the season and now we dial it down? (Farrar) was dialed in and we started thinking too much. We’re three games in. We don’t need to be doing that yet.”
Elon goes on the road for the first time this season on Tuesday, Feb. 19 when it makes the short trip to Greensboro to take on the 2-1 North Carolina A&T State University Aggies. Weather permitting, first pitch is set for 3 p.m.