One day after moving up to two spots to No. 3 in the rankings, the Miami Hurricanes lost their first mid-week matchup since March 16.
Against the Stetson Hatters (19-21, 5-13 ASUN) on Tuesday night, Miami (31-10, 16-5 ACC) struggled with both pitching and scoring runs in a 12-4 loss at Mark Light Field.
“Just a total team effort in terms of playing poorly,” Miami head coach Gino DiMare said. “Everybody’s to blame on this one. Pitching wise, poor pitching. They scored in every inning but three. We played poorly defensively. I know it only shows two errors, but we bobbled balls, didn’t catch a ball in the outfield and bobbled balls in the outfield. Offensively, just poor, poor performance. I’m not sure where this came from, but very disappointed.”
The Hatters, who have not beat the Hurricanes in Coral Gables since 1997, scored six runs in the first three innings off Miami’s starting pitcher, sophomore Jake Garland. Five of those six runs came in the top of the third inning.
Ronaldo Gallo replaced Garland in the third inning and continued through the fourth inning. Gallo gave up three hits, but no runs in 1.1 innings.
Third baseman Yohandy Morales hit a RBI in the bottom of the third inning and freshman Zach Levenson hit a solo home run, his fifth of the year, to left field in the bottom of the fourth inning to give the Hurricanes two runs.
Sophomore Alejandro Torres pitched the fifth inning for the Hurricanes where he gave up two runs on three hits, sophomore Alex McFarlane pitched the sixth inning and surrendered two runs on three hits.
Redshirt junior Jordan Dubberly replaced McFarlane in the top of the seventh inning and gave up one run on two hits. Utility player JP Gates pitched the eighth inning for the Hurricanes and gave up a solo home run to catcher Christian Pregent.
Miami’s last two runs came in the bottom of the sixth inning on an error committed by the Stetson first baseman that allowed Jacob Burke and Maxwell Romero Jr. to score.
“We’ve got to get ourselves ready real quick because we got a big series this weekend,” DiMare said. “We have to get back to the things that have made us successful up to this point.”
The Hurricanes will face Georgia Tech in Atlanta this weekend for a three-game series beginning on Friday at 6 p.m.