The Brandeis University baseball team scored 27 runs across two games, including eight RBI from sophomore 3B Ben Kuja (Madison, Conn./Daniel Hand), as the Judges secured a double-header sweep and University Athletic Association series split with the University of Chicago Maroons, winning 19-6 in the opener and 8-2 in Game 2. The games were shortened to seven innings in order for the Judges to get away on time.
TEAM RECORDS
- Brandeis: 11-10, 4-4 UAA.
- Chicago: 11-12, 4-4 UAA.
HOW IT HAPPENED, GAME ONE (Brandeis 19, Chicago 6)
- The Judges pounced on the Maroons from the jump in the opener, sending 12 batters to the plate and scoring eight runs on five hits, three walks and an error.
- Kuja and junior 2B Matt Chafin (Canton, Mass. / Canton) both reached base twice in the frame, with Kuja walking and delivering a two-run ground-rule double, and Chafin adding a double and a single.
- Chicago took advantage of some wildness from Brandeis grad student Jacob Maurer (Dayton, Ohio / Archbishop Carroll) to score three times in the second inning, drawing four straight walks and getting a bases-loaded double from Luke Weston. The Maroons scored two runs on the play, but Brandeis threw out a runner at the plate to avoid further damage.
- Both teams scored three runs in the fifth inning, making the score 11-6.
- Kuja delivered an RBI single in the sixth and a two-run triple as part of a seven-run Brandeis seventh inning as the Judges blew things open for the 19-6 win.
- It was Brandeis's largest scoring total of the season and the most ever scored by the Judges in a UAA game.
- Kuja paced the offense by going 4-4 with career-highs of four runs scored and six RBI. He had a double and a triple among his four hits, the second four-hit game of his career.
- Chafin finished with three hits, while junior CF Connor Crowley (Guilford, Conn. / Notre Dame-West Haven) and first-year SS Noah Koong (Sammamish, Wash./Eastlake) each scored three runs. Sophomore RF Bobby Quill (Raynham, Mass. / Bridgewater-Raynham Reg.) had three RBI out of the nine-spot of the batting order.
- Maurer picked up the win to improve to 2-2 on the season. He went 4.1 innings, allowing four hits and six runs, walking five with two strikeouts.
- First-year lefty Jackson Herzog (New York, N.Y. / Dalton School) threw the final 2.2 innings, allowing just one hit and two walks with one strikeout.
HOW IT HAPPENED, GAME TWO (Brandeis 8, Chicago 2)
- The Judges used the long ball in the second game, going deep three times to produce seven of their eight runs.
- In the third inning, Kuja delivered his seventh and eighth RBI of the day by taking a 1-2 pitch out of the park to center field to give Brandeis a 2-0 lead. It was the first homer of Kuja's career.
- Brandeis blew things open in the fifth, scoring six runs on two more blasts. After Chafin drove in a run with an infield single, sophomore 1B Danny Tambascia (Newton, Mass./Newton North) went deep to center with two on to make it a 6-0 lead. It was his first of the season and second of his career.
- Two batters later, junior Henry Aronwald (Rye Brook, N.Y./Trinity Pawling) went deep down the left field line to make it 8-0. Aronwald tied for the team lead with his second blast of the season and the seventh of his career.
- Chicago scored single runs in the fifth and sixth, but couldn't string together anything more.
- The offense supported sophomore starter John Milewski (Framingham, Mass./Framingham), who tossed 4.2 innings of three-hit ball. He gave up one earned run, walking four and striking out one.
- Sophomore Brady Lane (Hingham, Mass./BC High) closed out the final 2.1 frames, allowing just one hit and one earned run, striking out two and walking one.