Clark baseball finished out their season with a pair of losses to Babson on Saturday. The sunny weather was perfect for the final home games, doubling as a senior day celebrating the 17 seniors and graduate students on the Cougar's roster this season.

 

Game one saw Clark senior Nick Guarino (New Haven, Conn.) take the hill against Babson pitcher Jordy Allard. The first three innings were a true pitcher's duel, with neither team's offense cracking through. 

 

An error and a single by Babson's Thomas Lapham in the fourth finally saw the Beaver's get on the scoreboard, though Guarino bounced back with a solid fifth inning to finish his day with a line of five innings of two runs, one earned, and two strikeouts. 

 

Clark got on the board in the bottom of the sixth when senior designated hitter James Huber (Rochester, N.Y.) hit his second triple of the game to drive in Derek Lefebvre (Groton, Mass.). 

 

The Beavers would score four runs between the seventh and eighth innings, while several pitchers threw for Clark including Nate Bonini (Westfield, Mass.), John Bruzzese (Westwood, Mass.), Kevin Irwin (Pakkret, Nonthaburi) who retired the side in order in the eighth, and Max Gitlin (Manhattan Beach, Calif.). Clark would score one more run in the bottom of the ninth courtesy of a double from graduate student Andrew Thibault (Nashua, N.H.) that scored Huber. Allard received the win for the Beavers after throwing seven innings of one with 10 strikeouts.

 

Game two featured junior Jafar Vohra (Shelton, Conn.) throwing for Clark against Babson's Ben Gottesman. After a Francis Kiely single gave the Beaver's a 1-0 lead, the Cougars quickly erased it in the bottom of the inning with Lefebvre hitting a leadoff home run, his 17th of his career. The Beaver's would pile on nine more runs over the next four innings, and despite a trio of strikeouts from Vohra, and two strikeouts from reliever Benjamin Spencer (New Holland, Pa.) the Beavers were in a groove. Clark would score two more in the bottom of the fifth after Lefebvre hit a scarifice fly to score Trevor Ham (North Andover, Mass.) and Billy Sullivan (Hicksville, N.Y.) reached first on an error, scoring Andrea Casabianca (Yonkers, N.Y.). 

 

Torsten Sloan Anderson (Shelburne Falls, Mass.), Sean Savage (Berkeley Heights, N.J.), Max Moss (Manhattan, N.Y.), and Zachary Gitschier (Lowell, Mass.) all pitched solid relief for the Cougars, with Anderson striking out three, and Savage and Gitschier each registering a strikeout. 

 

Babson's one home run of the game occurred in the bottom of the seventh when second baseman Jack Julian launched a two-run shot well past left field. 

 

Clark concludes their season with a 5-9 record, and a 3-5 official NEWMAC conference record, good for sixth in the NEWMAC.