WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. -- Nicholas Giatino hurled a three-hit shutout in the opener Saturday and his teammates banged out 20 hits in the nightcap as the Amherst College baseball team swept a key NESCAC West Division doubleheader from rival Williams College on the Ephs' Bobby Coombs Field.
Amherst took all three games of the three-game series with Williams and ran its win streak against the Ephs to 10 games. The Mammoths are 13-8-1 overall and 3-2 in NESCAC play. They are at Hamilton Sunday for a 2 p.m. game which will conclude their three-game series with the Continentals that started two weeks ago. Williams fell to 9-13 overall, and 3-6 in NESCAC West play.
GAME 1 HIGHLIGHTS:
* Giattino allowed only three baserunners over seven full innings, all singles. After allowing a lead-off single in the bottom of the third, he retired 13 consecutive Ephs until one out in the bottom of the seventh. After a groundout, he fanned the final batter of the game to complete the shutout. He did not walk or hit a batter, fanned nine, and improved to 3-2 on the season.
* Meanwhile, the Mammoths scored four in the third and four in the fourth to build an 8-0 lead.
* In the top of the third,
Christian Fagnant ignited the rally with a lead-off single, took second on a wild pitch, and third on a
Jack Boyle flyout to right.
Jack Sampedro followed with an RBI double to center field.
Jack McDermott raised the stakes with an RBI triple to center.
Ryan McIntyre matched that result with his own RBI triple to center before
Luke Padian closed the uprising with a sacrifice fly to left that scored McIntyre for a 4-0 lead.
* In the Amherst fourth, one
Javier Irizarry single, four walks, and two hit batsmen result in four more runs for the Mammoths and an 8-0 lead.
* Amherst had seven hits in the win. Seven different players had one hit. Fagnant was 1 for 2 with three runs scored and two walks. Sampdero was 1 for 3 with two walks, two runs scored, and two RBIs.
GAME 2 HIGHLIGHTS:
* Amherst built a 5-0 lead with five runs in the top of the third.
Tyler McCord led off the frame with a single and
Christian Limon followed with a two-run home run to left, his first home run of the season.
Jack Boyle kept things going with a double. Sampedro scored him with a single back up the middle for a 3-0 lead. McIntyre doubled to score Sampedro and Padian followed with a drive down the right-field line that went for an RBI single and the five-run advantage.
* In the Amherst fifth, Padian stroked an RBI double that scored McDermott, who had doubled. That gave Amherst a 6-2 lead. McDermott tripled in the 7th and scored on a McIntyre sacrifice fly for a 7-4 Amherst lead.
* Williams closed to 7-6 in the half of the seventh but
Tyson Luna came on with the tying run at first and one out and struck out the next two batters to end the threat.
* A two-run double by
Jack Boyle in the eighth made it 9-6.
* Jacob Rbitzki earned the win for Amherst, improving to 2-1 on the season. He allowed 11 hits and two walks over 6-plus innings and struck out one batter. Luna,
Alan Dai, and Sampedro combined for three innings of one-hit relief, waking no batters and fanning five.
* The Mammoths had 20 hits. Padian was 4 for 5 with 3 RBIs. McDermott was 3 for 5 with three runs scored. Limon was 3 for 5 with one run scored and 2 RBIs. McCord was 3 for 5 with two runs scored.
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