Last Wednesday the Waynesburg University baseball team traveled to Washington and Jefferson and lost both games giving up a total of 31 runs. 

The game was originally scheduled Saturday, however due to rain on Friday the game was pushed to the next day at Ross Memorial Park. 

The Presidents started the game off with a two-run homerun in the top of the first inning. After Waynesburg didn’t score any runs in the bottom of the first, and W&J would tack on two more runs in the second inning to extend their 4-0 lead. 

The Presidents would score in every inning except for the sixth inning, and have the run rule put into effect ending the game in the seventh inning with a final score of 14-1. 

“I believe we had a slight momentum change whenever our home game got moved to the away team’s site,” senior outfielder Lane Ours said. “Personally I believe it affected a lot of our players’ attitude towards the game by stripping the home field advantage away from us.” 

Ours said despite the loss there are positives to takeaway. 

“We got to play on the conference tournament site,” Ours said. “We know what the expectations are of our team and what we need to do and play at the highest level.” 

Ours also said that this has been the tightest group of guys he has ever been around. 

“There’s a lot of fight, resilience and grit in this group of guys and honestly has made the games so much fun for me this year.”

Game two had the same feel as W&J jumped out again to a 2-0 after the top of the first, however this time Waynesburg retaliated with an RBI double from centerfielder Garrett Comer. 

The Presidents scored four more runs in the top of the second inning, but the Yellow Jackets again chipped away at the lead with a three-run home run from Ours. 

Unfortunately, Washington and Jefferson pulled away scoring 13 more runs over a five inning span. 

With that loss Waynesburg’s seven game winning-streak was snapped and fell down to third in the Presidents’ Athletic Conference. 

Freshman first baseman Trent Giraffa has gotten a lot of playing time this year with senior Marcos Mendez being out most of the season. Giraffa said how grateful he has been for getting an opportunity to start in his first year on the team. 

“I feel my freshman experience has been good so far,” he said. “As soon as I stepped on campus the upperclassmen were very accepting and they instantly became my family.” 

Giraffa said that these two games will help the team heading into the later part of the year. 

“They were good competition and allowed us to look into the mirror a little bit. However, it’s the rearview mirror and now our focus has shifted to our next conference game which is Thiel.” 

Giraffa currently has a .286 batting average, seven runs driven in and an on base streak of 14 games in a row. 

W&J remains undefeated on the year in PAC play with a 10-0 conference record and a 16-7 overall record. Waynesburg drops to 8-3 in the PAC and a 17-12 overall record. 

The Yellow Jackets are back on the diamond today heading to face Thiel for a PAC double-header. First pitch is at 1 p.m.