Ryan Reisert

Ryan Reisert

It was a beautiful day for baseball Saturday, as many fans made the trek to Trudeau Park in Côte-Saint-Luc to watch McGill battle the Stingers in a doubleheader. The defending national champions were looking to bounce back after their first defeat of the season to divisional rivals Concordia. However, the afternoon did not go as planned as the Redmen (0-3) lost both contests by scores of 3-0 and 9-4.

Over the course of the twin bill, McGill’s pitching and hitting were solid but struggled with consistency. However, Head Coach Ernie D’Alessandro was quick to point out that key players were missing, one being Casey Auerbach, who is injured but should be in uniform soon. “It takes some time to gel but we’ll bounce back and win some ball games. It’s a long season and we’ve only played a few games. They’re a good bunch of guys and we’ll improve,” D’Alessandro said, emphasizing that it is still early in the season.

The first contest began as a pitcher’s duel, with both starting aces looking sharp and in top form. Down 2-0 in the bottom of the fifth, with McGill in trouble with the bases loaded, starting pitcher L.J. Aguinaga induced a ground ball and the infield managed to turn a double play to get out of the jam. The Stingers’ starting pitcher threw a complete game, allowing only two hits in the three-run victory.

In need of some offence in game two, the Redmen hoped to revive their bats and they did just that as the match rolled along. In the top of the first inning with one runner on base, Chris Ames hit a two-run homerun to put McGill ahead. The Redmen led off with a double in the second, and with two outs all-Canadian Josh Gordon doubled to drive in another run. Gordon eventually made it home following a throwing error making it 4-0 for McGill. With a good start under their belts, things took a turn for the worse in the bottom of the second. Concordia scored five and never looked back. McGill only managed four runs, with all of them coming in the second inning.

Chris Ames, one of the bright spots of the day, highlighted what went wrong in game two. “We were up four nothing early which is nice,” Ames said. “We had a couple of good innings but we gave a few free passes to some of their hitters and let them get back in the game. We just didn’t keep the pressure on, we just kind of faded and they took the game over.”

Game one starter, L.J. Aguinaga threw a solid 5 2/3 innings, striking out three and giving up only three earned runs. He doesn’t want the team to panic and forget its identity. “We have a lot of rookies on the team and we’re still trying to put things together,” Aguinaga said, echoing his coach’s words. “We’re the National Champions and we’re here to defend our title for sure, but we still have to get the job going right now … We’ve got thirteen more games and we should definitely put out a good record for the rest of the season.”

Although the start of the Redmen’s season has been disappointing, the buzz and intensity surrounding this squad is undeniable. Everyone is optimistic as McGill is looking to regain their championship form, and from all indications it certainly seems that they will.