At the beginning of April, the University of Miami baseball team hit the road to take on Boston College and had two games postponed due to winter weather, forcing both teams to play a double header in order to complete the series.
Once again, Mother Nature disrupted the University of Miami’s weekend plans against an ACC opponent. The Hurricanes traveled to Maryland to face the Terrapins and had Saturday’s contest postponed because of rain.
Miami won the series, taking two out of three games from the Terrapins, including a split of a Sunday double-header.
Starting pitcher Bryan Radziewski took the mound for the Hurricanes on Friday night and earned his sixth victory of the year, adding to an already impressive freshman campaign.
The lefty tossed six and two-thirds innings, surrendering two earned runs while striking out six Terrapins.
Nathan Melendres, Rony Rodriguez and Harold Martinez had tremendous night’s at the plate in the series opener, a game that Miami would go on to win 10-4.
The trio combined for seven hits and five RBI as the three, four and five hitters in the Hurricanes lineup.
Saturday’s game was scheduled to start at 3 p.m. but was called off early in the morning due to heavy rain in the College Park, Maryland area. The game was bumped to the following day as part of a Sunday double header.
Miami lost the first contest on Sunday 10-2. The game was close heading into the seventh inning, but the Terrapins scored three runs in the bottom of the frame to take a commanding 6-1 lead.
Sophomore Eric Whaley took the loss for the Hurricanes and fell to 5-2 on the year despite delivering a solid outing.
The hard throwing righty went six innings surrendering three runs, only one of which was earned. He also struck out seven Maryland batters in the process.
In the second game of the double-header, and the rubber match of the series, Miami used a two-run homerun from freshman Brad Fieger to break a 2-2 tie in the top of the seventh inning.
The round-tripper was the first of the year for Fieger and helped teammate E.J. Encinosa earn his third win of the season. Junior Daniel Miranda closed out the game for the Hurricanes, recording his tenth save in the 5-2 victory.
Miami has now won three straight ACC series and will take its recent success into the toughest part of the regular season schedule.
Over the next three weekends the Hurricanes will take on the class of the ACC in North Carolina, Florida State and Virginia. All three programs are nationally ranked with Virginia holding the number one spot in more than one poll.
The Hurricanes are winless against ranked opponents in 2011, falling victim to sweeps at the hands of both Florida and Georgia Tech earlier this year.
Adam Berger may be contacted at aberger@themiamihurricane.com