A week ago the JMU baseball team was sharp, winning eight of its first nine games in the Colonial Athletic Association and 14 of the season’s first 18. Since then, the Dukes have lost four of six games, falling to 16-7 overall and 9-3 in the conference.
Madison’s struggles continued Tuesday night against Virginia Tech, as the Dukes lost 18-11 in an offensive showcase.
While part of what the Dukes had done so well this season was pitch strong enough to win games in the later innings, Madison has allowed 70 runs in the last six games.
JMU coach Spanky McFarland used two weekend starters Tuesday in relief and pitched Madison’s closer in the ninth inning. All three struggled at times.
“The one thing you need to do is just fill up the zone and I thought I did a decent job at that,” junior pitcher Kurt Houck said. “They were able to get a couple decent hits off me. You just [have] to come in and do what’s expected.”
The teams combined for 34 hits over the nine innings and saw an additional 21 players reach base because of walks, errors or players hit by pitch. Madison had numerous opportunities to control the game but never took advantage. After JMU jumped out to a 3-0 lead, the Hokies took the lead in the fourth inning and never lost it.
“I really felt like the team that batted last today had a chance to win this with the wind blowing out and the way that things were going,” McFarland said.
Virginia Tech took an 11-5 lead in the sixth inning, but junior right fielder Brett Sellers led a JMU rally with a high fly ball to left field. The towering shot caught wind and cleared the wall to cut the Hokies’ lead to four. Once again though, Tech answered right back and scored four runs in the seventh.
“That’s devastating,” Sellers said, who finished the game with two home runs. “You work hard to score runs and they come out and do a nice job and put four up. They did what they needed to do to win today.”
The Dukes’ offense continued to hit and work hard, but double plays repeatedly ended rallies. JMU hit into five double plays and left 11 runners on base.
“That’s 10 outs on five plays, that’s huge,” Virginia Tech coach Pete Hughes said. “That takes so much pressure off your staff and it kills a lot of momentum in [the JMU] dugout.”
The JMU offense was not the only area that struggled Tuesday as the Dukes’ defense had three errors on a very windy day. Many players were out of position and an injury to senior second basemen Joe Lake made matters worse in the early innings.
“I think we just need to get back to working and back to the basics,” Sellers said. “We have played well and need to just get back to what we do best.”
Even with the recent struggles and lack of overall execution, Sellers and the Dukes are not worried. They feel that lapses can be expected in a long season, and plan to fix them with repetition.
“I still feel like we are in really good shape,” Sellers, who now has eight homeruns and 21 RBI on the season, said. “Everyone is still playing hard and I just think we’ll turn it around.”
