Andrew Wengert

BUFFALO, NY - The Buffalo baseball team rallied, but fell just short against Miami, 7-6, at Amherst Audubon Field on Saturday afternoon. Trailing 7-4 in the bottom of the ninth inning, the Bulls scored two runs and had the tying run 90 feet away, but couldn't capitalize and dropped their second straight game to the RedHawks.

Miami jumped out to a 1-0 lead in the top of the second inning on a solo home run by Paul Frietch. The RedHawks added another run in the top of the third inning on a sacrifice fly by Sam Sellery. An RBI triple by Andrew Wengert (Utica, NY/Proctor), in the bottom of the third inning, cut the Miami lead in half. UB tied the game in the bottom of the fourth inning on a sacrifice fly by Brian Zelasko (Orchard Park, NY/Orchard Park). Zelasko struck again in the bottom of the sixth inning when he laced a two-run double to left center to put the Bulls ahead, 4-2.

Like they did on Friday, the RedHawks used a big inning to take the lead. Miami scored four times in the top of the seventh thanks to RBI doubles by Sellery, John Slone and Brian Canada and an RBI single by Frietch. The RedHawks added an insurance run in the top of the ninth inning on an RBI double by Frietch.

In the bottom of the ninth inning, the Bulls were able to work the bases loaded on singles by Joe Mihalics (Tonawanda, NY/Timon/St. Jude) and Wengert and a walk by David Amaro (Endicott, NY/Union-Endicott). With one out, Chris McGraw (Summerville, SC/Stratford) reached on an error by the first baseman that scored two runs. However, Amaro was stranded at third base after Miami's closer Chad Reineke struck out the final two batters.

The Bulls had 14 hits in the game - two more than the RedHawks. Wengert collected four hits and Phil Vanhorne (Scarborough, Ontario/Mother Teresa) added three hits for the Bulls.

The loss dropped the Bulls to 7-22 overall and 1-6 in the MAC. Miami improved to 22-11 overall and 6-1 in the conference. The teams will play the final game of their three-game series on Sunday at 1 pm.