Weekend Recap

The first weekend of games are in the books for the New Paltz Hawks who went 1-2 in their first action of the season. The Hawks won their first game of the season against Baruch College before losing two in a row, once to Hampden-Sydney and then to Rutgers-Camden. While New Paltz's pitching lead the way during the weekend, the offense struggled in the beginning stages of the season. "It is early yet, the hitters look a little timid at the plate, they have to get that "killer mentality"up there, once they do that there's no telling what we can do," says pitching coach Zach Potter.


The Hawks started off the season by beating Baruch College at Silver Lake Park in Purchase, New York, by the score of 2-0. The Hawks rallied behind Chris Chismar's stellar fifteen strikeout performance in only six innings of work, due to a pitch count restriction this early in the season. After a long nine hour bus ride the Hawks arrived in Virginia very early Saturday morning. With a quick turnaround they took the field against Hampden-Sydney, who had already played fourteen games prior to there matchup with New Paltz. The Hawks would lead the entire game only to watch their lead of 2-0 slip away in the late innings of the game. A wild pitch on an intentional walk would score the game tying run in the seventh inning, a single would then score the go ahead run from second to put Hampden-Sydney up 3-2. They would end up winning the game 6-2.  


In the Hawks next matchup, against Rutgers-Camden, they would rally to tie the game at three apiece in the top of the eighth, only to watch the game take a turn in the bottom half of the inning. With two outs Rutgers-Camden tried to steal second base, but the runner was thrown out by senior catcher Matt Kaldon. As the Hawks trotted of the field after what seemed to be the final out of the inning they were called back out to the field by the umpire, who had called a balk move on the pitcher. With the go-ahead run at second, Rutgers-Camden took the lead on a bloop single over, shortstop Steve Morse's head, and eventually won the game.


"We saw some things we definitely liked this weekend and some things we have to work on during this weeks upcoming practice. It's early in the season and nothing to get down about. We need a good productive and focused week at practice and then be ready to take it to Salisbury University this weekend," said senior captain Matt Carr.