The SwampBats struggled defensively in both games against the league-best Mountaineers, losing 6-5 and 15-2. 

With Keene the provisional home team in the rescheduled first game, Vermont took the lead with the first two batters of the game after a walk, a stolen base, and a fielding error on the infield. Charlie Oschell (Virginia) buckled down to strike out all of the next three batters. In the bottom of the first, Jake Koonin (Princeton) drew a two-out walk and stole second. Jake Millan (Florida Atlantic) drilled a double to the wall in right-center field to score Koonin and tie the game at one. Andrew Wiggins (Indiana) worked a long at-bat and singled in the second inning, and his college teammate TJ Schuyler doubled him over to third. Wake Forest’s Austin Hawke hit a ground ball to shortstop to score Wiggins and give the SwampBats a 2-1 lead.

A pair of walks in the third put two runners on base with two outs against Oschell. The Mountaineers then hit a ground ball past an infielder for an error and tied the game at two. The next batter smashed a three-run home run over the fence in left field to make it 5-2 Mountaineers. Oschell, victimized by his infield defense, finished with five unearned runs on only two hits over three innings with four strikeouts. Keene got a run back in the bottom of the third when Nick Romano (Florida Atlantic) doubled and scored on a Koonin single. Koonin made a thrilling diving catch toward the foul line in the top of the fourth. In the bottom half, Wiggins cranked his second home run of the season to the opposite field in left to make it 5-4. Vermont made it 6-4 with a triple and a single in the fifth. With a runner at second and two outs, they hit a single to center and waved the baserunner around third. David Mendez (Vanderbilt) fired in a terrific throw on one hop to nab the runner at home. The SwampBats had runners at the corners with one out in the sixth, but ran into a strike-em-out, throw-em-out double play. Skip Shenosky (Penn State) kept Keene in the game with four innings of one-run relief, striking out two. In the bottom of the seventh, Hawke led off with a single, and Romano singled with one out to put the tying runs on base. Koonin grounded into a fielder’s choice to score Hawke and make it 6-5, but that was as close as the SwampBats would come.

In the second game, Vermont’s first batter reached on catcher’s interference. The next hitter walked, and that was followed by an RBI single. They laid down a sacrifice bunt but it was thrown into right field for an error, allowing another run to score. The next hitter won a race to the first base bag, diving in for an infield single. After two strikeouts with the bases loaded, they hit a two-run double to the left field corner. The next two batters each struck RBI singles, followed by an RBI double and a two-run single. In all, the Mountaineers scored nine times on seven hits and two errors in the bottom of the first. They hit a two-run home run in the second inning following an error to make it 11-0. Brady Clark (Saint John’s) allowed no earned runs over one inning in his debut. An RBI single in the third added to the Vermont lead.

The SwampBats got on the board in the fourth when Millan belted his second triple in three days off the wall in right-center, and scored on a groundout by Mendez. A fielder’s choice made it 13-1 Vermont in the bottom half but Braxton Stewart (Louisville) allowed only that run in the inning after entering in a bases-loaded, no-out jam. Vermont scored twice in the fifth on a double and a single to make it 15-1. Schuyler pitched a scoreless bottom of the sixth, striking out two. Pitcher Sean Finn (Connecticut) lined a single to begin the seventh, exciting the SwampBats dugout, and scored on a sacrifice fly by Wiggins. 

The Swampbats (24-17) visit Sanford on Sunday. The final game of the regular season is Monadnock Broadcasting Group night against Sanford on Tuesday. Military and First Responders will be recognized at the game. The SwampBats have clinched the playoffs but their first round schedule is still uncertain.