AMHERST, Mass. -- Memorial Field has been the site of a tonnage of great baseball over the many decades, but in terms of sheer drama, it would be hard to top the events of Saturday.
Needing a sweep of Colby to keep their season alive and advance to the NESCAC Tournament's championship weekend, the Amherst College baseball team used a first game 9-inning no-hitter from first-year
Saahi Jetti and a bottom of the ninth walk-off single from pinch-hitter
Leo Foust to bring out the brooms, 3-0 and 3-2, and rip the best-of-three quarterfinal series away from the Mules.
Amherst improved to 24-12 on the season with the sweep and will take on Trinity in the 5 p.m. game Friday, May 8, at the Bantam's own Murren Family Field/DiBenedetto Stadium. The Mammoths will be the home team. The NESCAC Championship weekend is a four-team, double-elimination format. Middlebury will battle Tufts in Friday's first game.
Colby sees its season end at 20-15.
Game 1: Amherst 3, Colby 0
* Jetti's masterpiece was the Mammoths fourth no-hitter in five years and fifth since 2014. But what made it stand out, in addition to the timing - a loss and the season is over -- is it is the only one of those five to be completed by a single pitcher over a nine-inning complete game effort. Three were seven-inning efforts and two were combined (one was both seven frames and combined).
* The game was a terrific duel between Jetti and Colby's Matt Higgins, who each cruised through the first three frames. Jetti retired the first six batters he faced, three on punchouts, before walking the lead-off hitter in the third. But he then retired the next eight batters consecutively until an error put a Colby runner on with two outs in the fifth.
* Amherst scratched out the only earned run of the contest in the bottom of the fourth when
Tyler McCord led off with a single and stole second. He advanced to third on
Charlie LaFreniere's ground out to shortstop and scored when lined a sacrifice fly out to right field for a 1-0 lead.
* Jetti issued a lead-off walk in the sixth -- one of only three free passes he would allow -- and that runner advanced to third with two outs, but the big right-hander froze the final batter of the frame with a strike three curve to end the inning. He then retired the side in the seventh, striking out two more Mules.
* Amherst added two unearned runs in the seventh. Mammoth
Matthew Chen had the only hit of the frame, but three errors allowed to Mammoth runners to score and increase the lead to 3-0.
* Jetti's toughest challenge came in the top of the eighth. An error and a hit batsman put Colby runners of first and second with one out, but Jetti fanned the next batter and induced a forceout at second to end the threat. In the ninth, a one-out walk to Tony Silva gave the Mules hope, but on the very next pitch, Jetti calmly fielded a sharp comebacker to the mound, threw to shortstop
Aiden Dubetsky at second for one out and watched as Dubestky completed the twin-killing with a throw to Orridge at first to give Jetti the no-hitter and tie the series at one game apiece.
* Amherst had five hits in the win, Chen went 2 for 3.
Game 2: Amherst 3, Colby 2
* Another great pitcher's duel between Amherst senior
Naaveen Narayanan and Colby's Keeler Vogt. The Mules took a 1-0 lead in the second on an RBI-single by Corey Aubuchon. Amherst tied it in the third when
Jackson Boyer worked a two-out walk. Dubetsky followed with a hard grounder off the pitcher which resulted in an infield single and moved Boyer to second. McCord scored Boyer with a hard grounder up the middle that went for an RBI-single.
* In the top of the fourth, the Mules went up 2-1 when Will Burns smacked a deep fly ball to right that curled around the foul pole for a solo home run.
* Narayanan kept it 2-1 through the top of sixth, matching the longest outing of his career to date, which he set last week. He left trailing 2-1, allowing only four hits and two walks while striking out three over those six frames.
* Vogt got into the seventh, but came out after Chen reached on an error and pinch-runner
Yoon Chae stole second. Colby's Matt Mahoney came on and fanned the first batter he faced. However, two wild pitches allowed Chae to score the tying run.
* Amherst sophomore
Walker Dellinger came on after Narayanan and threw three perfect innings of relief, retiring all nine Colby batters he faced between the 7th and 9th, striking out two.
* First-year
Zander Carnahan led off the bottom of the ninth by slapping an opposite-field, lead-off double to right. Chae laid down a nice sacrifice bunt to move him to third and pinch-hitter Foust lined the very first pitch he saw over the second baseman's head for a game-winning single.
* Dellinger earned the win, improving to 2-1. Amherst had five hits, with Carnahan going 2 for 4 with the Mammoths' only extra-base hit of the three-game series.
