The Brandeis men’s baseball team is gearing up for their 2019 season. The team’s first game against the University of Massachusetts Boston was postponed and will be made up on April 23. Their games scheduled for Sunday against Western New England University were cancelled due to bad weather conditions, resulting in the team playing only two games out of the five on their schedule. But the limited number of games played bodes well for the Judges: their overall record is 2–0 after their first two games against Bowdoin College, according to the Brandeis Athletics website. 

In their season-opening sweep, the team played Bowdoin at the New England Baseball Complex in Northborough, Massachusetts. It was a battle of Brandeis alumni as Judges Coach Derek Carlson ’91 defeated the Polar Bear’s Michael Connolly ’94, making the matchups even more interesting.

In the first of the two games, the Judges won 4–2. Isaac Fossas ’21 scored the first point of the game at the bottom of the second inning, with a run batted in hit by Luke Hall ’21, according to Bowdoin Athletics. Next, at the bottom of the third, Mike Khoury ’21 hit a single to right field, and Tommy Sand ’21 was able to score the second point for the Judges, making the score 2–0.

At the top of the fourth, the Polar Bears tied the game at two. However, immediately following this, the Judges got two runs back by the bottom of the fourth. The Judges ended the game scoring  two more points. Hall hit the ball to left field, resulting in a run batted in, and then Dan O’Leary ’20 did the same. For the rest of the game, neither team scored, and the final score of the game was 4–2 in favor of the Judges. 

In the second game, the Judges were even more successful, defeating the Polar Bears 9–3. Although Bowdoin opened up the top of the first with the first point of the game, the Judges did not back down. At the bottom of the first, Khoury, Hall and Frey all scored points out of three separate runs batted in by Hall, Alex Parrot ’21 and O’Leary, respectively. In the top of the second, Bowdoin tried to make up for their score deficit scoring another point, bringing the difference to 2–3, but the Judges continued to impress. Scott Ziegler ’21 and Victor Oppenheim ’20 scored two more points at the bottom of the second, making the score 2–5 by the third inning.

In the bottom of the third, Ziegler scored again from a single to center field by Khoury,  followed by Khoury scoring from a double to left field hit by Fossas. The Judges advanced their lead with an impressive score of 7–2. At the bottom of the fifth, Oppenheim honered to right resulting in a run batted in and a score of 2–8. Although the Polar Bears scored at the top of the sixth, Parrot scored one more time at the bottom of the sixth to bring the final score to 9–3.

The Judges will travel to Tufts University to play the Jumbos on Monday and take on Nichols College Tuesday. Both games will be reported on in next week’s issue.

Currently, the team has a winning streak of 2 games and a batting average of 0.352. The teams slugging percentage is 0.593 and an on base percentage of 0.400. Compared to last year's batting average of 0.251, slugging percentage of 0.347 and an on base percentage of 0.347, the team is looking forward another great season. 

The schedule for this season has had some changes due to New England weather and may change in the future as well.